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So, what is everyones opinion in general of RPGs based off of different licensed properties such as the Star Wars RPG, Serenity(I hear opinions tend to get rather strong on this one), The Song of Ice and Fire, The Wheel of Time, etc.
Do you think that they are like novelizations of movies that are just designed mostly to generate some extra popularity for the franchise? And that they are not meant to last too long?
Or are they genuinely well made games that can last for a long time?
I know that the quality of these games depends a lot on who develops them. I am just curious to see what everyone here thinks of them(Not just the ones I listed above, it can be any RPG based off of a series of novels, TV series, movie, etc.)
Last edited by Galeros; 10th March 2009 at 12:35 AM..
It depends upon the individual game. I think that some properites have been made into games or supplements that were mediocre at best, while other properties have been turned into phenomenally entertaining games or supplements. There are entire game lines that contain products from both ends of the spectrum, IMHO.
Or are they genuinely well made games that can last for a long time?
Well, in practice, there's only two that have lasted a long time - Star Wars and Star Trek. I can't think of any other licensed properties that have really hung in for a long haul.
I think games based off a particular property end up with a dynamic similar to movies based on comic books - often enough, if you aren't careful the result does not have appeal outside the fans of the original property.
Gaming is already a small niche. Gamers who are fans of a particular property is a much smaller niche, generally. So, such games are going to saturate that niche quickly, and then sales drop, and the game goes out of print.
So, what is everyones opinion in general of RPGs based off of different licensed properties such as the Star Wars RPG, Serenity(I hear opinions tend to get rather strong on this one), The Song of Ice and Fire, The Wheel of Time, etc.
Do you think that they are like novelizations of movies that are just designed mostly to generate some extra popularity for the franchise? And that they are not meant to last too long?
Or are they genuinely well made games that can last for a long time?
I know that the quality of these games depends a lot on who develops them. I am just curious to see what everyone here thinks of them(Not just the ones I listed above, it can be any RPG based off of a series of novels, TV series, movie, etc.)
I think it depends upon the staying power of the original property. Things like Star Wars and Star Trek are bound to have incarnation after incarnation eventually pop up here and there. Games like Wheel of Time or Black Company are one-shot deals. While WoT or BC may be truly awesome products and books, they just aren't recognized like Star Wars would be.
On the presentation side, I liked how some of the properties where made. West End's Star Wars was awesome, D20 was "meh" for me, and while I own the Saga version, I haven't gotten into it, so can't comment. WoT is a great rpg resource and so was Black Company.
Licensed games are generally best when a system is specifically designed for them. That's one of the issues I have with Serenity and Battlestar Galactica roleplaying games - I don't think they should even remotely use the same system, which is clearly just MWP's pet in-house system blindly applied to whatever license they might get - and one of the reasons I think Star Wars Saga Edition is so much better than the two previous d20 versions; it's a thorough-going adaptation of the system to suit the needs of the license.
I also think licensed games are, with a very few exceptions, not likely to bring new people into the hobby the way people think they do.
__________________ Christopher Adams - Sydney, Australia
Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, "I am not the kind of person I want to be." It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.
In general, I find most licensed property gaming books to be a disappointment. The problem is that they tend to take a very limit scope thing, such as a single TV show or movie, and turn it in to a wide tapestry. It just doesn't work.
I think the staying power of Star Wars and Star Trek is that both encompass wide tapestry universies in their very nature. Frankly, the Star Wars universe is more varied than the D&D one.
When you have something more focused, like say Battlestar Galactica, there is really a limt to what you can play. Sure, you can do anything you like with the system, but then you're really not playing Battlestar Galactica, are you? I have seen several game systems where I love the original inspiration, but have no desire to try and play a game there.
There is also the drawback that your game will probably never live up to the original. We are not professional writers, so our dialog isn't as good. We can't go back and edit, so things lack the polish. We perhaps aren't as creative as the writers (at least in the limited avenue of the settings), so our campaigns dissapoint. I watched a friend try to run Wheel of Time once, and it was painful because they could never get anywhere near the glory the other playres saw in the books. (I had fun, but I have never read a single book in the series.)
And as noted above, it's a niche thing. Gaming is a niche market. Gamers who like show/movie X is a smaller niche. Those who then want to play repeatedly in that setting are an even smaller niche.
__________________ "It wasn't supposed to turn out this way. If they had talked to the rabbit, they would have figured that out."" --Prophet2b
Well, in practice, there's only two that have lasted a long time - Star Wars and Star Trek. I can't think of any other licensed properties that have really hung in for a long haul.
James Bond lasted a good while. It was successful when the license ended. Given it was Avalon Hill (rarely known for giving an RPG decent support), and the many licensing issues James Bond has had over the years, any number of things could have been behind the lapse.
I think a JB RPG that successfully captured the feel of the movies (as the original did) and, to a lesser extent, the books could have very long legs.
__________________ David A. Blizzard
"The only constant I am sure of is this accelerating rate of change" - Downside Up by Peter Gabriel
I think it's difficult to do a licensed property in an RPG format. Mostly because everyone will want to play their favorite characters. I think Star Wars did the best job, IMO... However I'd love to see the 4E versions of things like Farscape, Stargate, or Firefly...
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Call of Cthulhu has lasted for quite a while, too.
For the most part they are hit and miss with I would say more misses then hits. I'm sure they can be a pain for the publishers though as there is no way they can make all the fans happy and this industry's fans seem to like to have the highly pissed off vocal minority.
So, what is everyones opinion in general of RPGs based off of different licensed properties such as the Star Wars RPG, Serenity(I hear opinions tend to get rather strong on this one), The Song of Ice and Fire, The Wheel of Time, etc.
Do you think that they are like novelizations of movies that are just designed mostly to generate some extra popularity for the franchise? And that they are not meant to last too long?
Or are they genuinely well made games that can last for a long time?
I know that the quality of these games depends a lot on who develops them. I am just curious to see what everyone here thinks of them(Not just the ones I listed above, it can be any RPG based off of a series of novels, TV series, movie, etc.)
In general, good for player-fans, restricting for licensees.
As someone already stated earlier, there are small percentage of roleplayers in the global gaming community, and even smaller percentage of that group are fans of certain IP franchise that are actually playing some form of RPG based on it.
There are some hits and some misses among gamers, and even among gamers there are disagreements. In the end, it really doesn't matter if it's licensed or not. I have seen gamers playing Trek in rulesystems other than d6 or d20.
IOW, there is no ONE perfectly tailored RPG system for one particular famous franchise.
Being licensed means you can carry the franchise's trademarks and giving a share of your revenue to the IP owner. You also give in to the whims of said IP owner (under the right of quality control).
__________________ Anyhoo, just some random thoughts...
My philosophy is "you don't need me to tell you how to play -- I'll just provide some rules and ideas to use and get out of your way." --Monte Cook
While it very much depends on the game as others have said, I seem to have something of a reputation among my friends and co-gamers(eh?) for running IP campaigns. I have GMed more games of Star Trek, Star Wars, DC Comics, Ghostbusters and Galaxy Quest (homebrew) then I have all original games and settings combined in my 32 years in the hobby.
I've also run and/or played in the universes of Red Dwarf, Marvel Comics, Lord of the Rings, Farscape, Mobile Suit Gundam, Macross, Patlabor, and one friend's crazy TV Superhero mish-mash (imagine a world where The Misfits of Science, Greatest American Hero, Knight Rider and Six Million Dollar Man were all real. Creepy and fun).
Star Trek remains a favorite and a 'specialty' of mine. IMHO its the single most fun RPG setting there is. You can quote me.
Mayfair put out three editions of DC Heroes, plus a spinoff Batman RPG. There is still a DC Heroes/Blood of Heroes list that generates rather high traffic.
MERP was seemingly immortal. Star Wars D6 is still played today. TMNT I have seen played long out of print. Robotech is once again in print.
It appears to me that licensed games have as much staying power as any other kind of games. Probably more.
Maybe it's because I'm reading the books again, but I keep thinking Dune would be a fun one. I would imagine it has been done before in one form or another (I never looked into it), but the idea of playing in that setting is exciting. I guess if wotc does Dark Sun next year I can get some of that want for desert stuff out of my system
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Dark Water Campaign run in the Last Lands
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So, what is everyones opinion in general of RPGs based off of different licensed properties such as the Star Wars RPG, Serenity(I hear opinions tend to get rather strong on this one), The Song of Ice and Fire, The Wheel of Time, etc.
Do you think that they are like novelizations of movies that are just designed mostly to generate some extra popularity for the franchise? And that they are not meant to last too long?
I think it depends very much on the nature of the licensed property, and whether there is "anything else" happening in the universe that is being licensed.
The Star Wars setting makes a good choice for a licensed game because, in large part thanks to the Expanded Universe material, there's a whole lot going on that doesn't have to do with the Skywalker clan.
Similarly, in Star Trek, the Enterprise was only one of a whole fleet of ships. So, setting a game in that universe makes a great deal of sense. (Although, Star Trek has problems in that the 'default campaign' has an in-built heirarchy of command, which may prove problematic in an RPG.)
Serenity should probably be the same, although the universe itself isn't hugely fleshed out. (That may or may not be an advantage, of course.) And the Babylon 5 universe should also work quite well, except that everything that has been presented in that universe outside the core plot of the TV series has been of questionable quality, at best.
By contrast, until the very last episode, Buffy was saddled with the whole "one slayer in every generation" restriction, which limits the utility of the setting in an RPG. Likewise, "Highlander" would be a poor choice, since by the end of the film there is only one Immortal left. "Battlestar Galactica" and "Red Dwarf" also suffer this same problem - the nature of the universe makes the title ship somewhat unique in each case, which is rather too limiting for an RPG.
For the most part, I think I prefer my RPGs built so as to emulate many sources rather than just one. So, rather than a Die Hard or Bad Boys RPG, an action movies supplement/toolbox for "d20 Modern" is a better choice. Rather than Bond or Bourne, better to go with "Spycraft". And so on.
I thought WEG's Star Wars d6 (1st edition) published in 1987 was very good and clearly had legs. It caught the feel of the movies very effectively.
edit: I also bought 1st edition d20 Star Wars. A total mess, piece of dreck. Got rid of it right away and haven't looked at d20 SW since.
Mongoose's d20 (OGL) Conan is pretty good, although d20 is a bit clunky for the genre, there were some effective tweaks to the ruleset and again Ian Sturrock did a good job of capturing the right atmosphere.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG looked great, read very nicely, but was let down and rendered unplayable for me by a Drama Point mechanic that was just too overpowering and wrenched me out of any possibility of immersion. WEG's Force Points worked great for Star Wars, OGL Conan has Fate Points that simulated the stories pretty well. Buffy's "Drama Points" came across far too much as a metagame narrative device, and being available to nearly all NPCs they inevitably dominate play. A 'white hat' PC starts with 20 of them. They give +10 to all rolls - in a d10 system, ie equivalent to +20 all rolls in d20. Listed stats are pretty much irrelevant in the face of that kind of modifier.
Call of Cthulhu has lasted for quite a while, too.
Debatable whether that counts as a licensed property; the original works are Public Domain and AFAIK no money changed hands. The only relevant Trade Mark is Call of Cthulu for RPGs, owned by Chaosium.
This is different from Conan - most of the original works are Public Domain, but AFAIK Conan Enterprises does maintain and license a registered Conan mark. Although without copyright in the underlying texts the strength of that mark is certainly debatable, nominative/descrriptive use defences would potentially allow me to publish my own game using the (Public Domain) Conan universe. I'd probably want to put some TM disclaimers in.
The Star Wars setting makes a good choice for a licensed game because, in large part thanks to the Expanded Universe material, there's a whole lot going on that doesn't have to do with the Skywalker clan.
But d6 Star Wars (1987) predated, and helped create, most of the Expanded Universe. Timothy Zahn drew heavily upon the RPG in writing his novels.
BTW I always thought WEG's interpretation of the Old Republic made far more sense than what Lucas revealed in the Prequel trilogy. A Republic without a military, that bans secession? Aliens everywhere, including the vast majority of the Senate? Hmmm.
That's one of the issues I have with Serenity and Battlestar Galactica roleplaying games - I don't think they should even remotely use the same system, which is clearly just MWP's pet in-house system blindly applied to whatever license they might get
Our Cortex system was originally designed for Serenity, actually, in preference to something like d20 Modern (which many people suggested we use at the time.) It was based on the rules for Sovereign Stone, but Jamie adapted those specifically for the game.
BSG uses a modified version of Cortex and, again, it wasn't chosen just because we liked the idea of a house system but because we felt it was a good fit. The rules were modified slightly, just as they have been for Demon Hunters and Supernatural.
It's not that we are limited to using Cortex for licensed properties. It's just that we happen to think the rules work pretty well for all of the ones we've had so far. No blindness at all.
Yeah, Cam, I've heard what you guys say. I think it's patently ridiculous to suggest that the system works for all the shows you've used it for, but it's your decision to make.
__________________ Christopher Adams - Sydney, Australia
Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, "I am not the kind of person I want to be." It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.
Yeah, Cam, I've heard what you guys say. I think it's patently ridiculous to suggest that the system works for all the shows you've used it for, but it's your decision to make.
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