The urban fantasy market seems awfully stagnant

Manbearcat · Jun 24, 2019

Aldarc said:
It is definitely Urban Fantasy, but the BitD setting is incredibly restrictive both in geographic scope (Duskvol) and its breadth of urban fantasy tropes. I don't think that one could readily use BitD for a generic urban fantasy game. It curtails itself to a fairly particular play experience. This is one of its strengths, but it can also work against its favor.

Ah ok.

(I’m asking this out of a position of ignorance) So when someone refers to “Urban Fantasy” in TTRPGing, are they referring to “a malleable game/system without a tight play premise baked in so it can be drifted to (say) the modern focus of ‘paranormal romance’ or something similar?”

Aldarc · Jun 24, 2019

Manbearcat said:
Ah ok.

(I’m asking this out of a position of ignorance) So when someone refers to “Urban Fantasy” in TTRPGing, are they referring to “a malleable game/system without a tight play premise baked in so it can be drifted to (say) the modern focus of ‘paranormal romance’ or something similar?”

In the context of the OP? I would say, yes, that appears to be the case:

BoxCrayonTales said:
Of the urban fantasy games that have come out in the last three decades or so, the one that seems to dominate the market is World of Darkness. Well, that and Shadowrun. I could be wrong, that's the impression I get. What sets World of Darkness apart from something like Dungeons & Dragons, All Flesh Must be Eaten, Urban Shadows, Monsterhearts, or Feed is that it isn't a "generic" game which supports a variety of settings. It has a three decade old convoluted comic-book style continuity baked in.

The less said about the mechanics the better. Especially the superpowers. It you want my opinion at its most succinct, then I believe a mechanic like Godbound's words is vastly superior to the mess that is World/Chronicles of Darkness.

I find all that rather grating. I don't like World/Chronicles of Darkness because I don't like being restricted to play in someone else's arbitrarily narrow sandbox. I don't like playing a game that is firmly stuck in an early 90s zeitgeist when the urban fantasy genre is so much more diverse than that and roleplaying games have expanded so far in that time. I like having loads of options, like how Dungeons & Dragons has a bazillion campaign settings both official and third-party.

There simply doesn't seem be any game approximating Dungeons & Dragons's diversity for the urban fantasy genre, or at least none that have achieved anywhere near as much success as World of Darkness.

The underlying desire seems to be for something that does for urban fantasy what D&D does for pseudo-medieval fantasy, especially without the various lore/edition/setting baggage of WoD.

Umbran · Jun 24, 2019

Manbearcat said:
Ah ok.

(I’m asking this out of a position of ignorance) So when someone refers to “Urban Fantasy” in TTRPGing, are they referring to “a malleable game/system without a tight play premise baked in so it can be drifted to (say) the modern focus of ‘paranormal romance’ or something similar?”

It seems the OP wants that. It isn't part of Urban Fantasy in and of itself.

Umbran · Jun 24, 2019

Kaodi said:
What work does "urban" actually do in "urban fantasy" ? A city is mostly a place where rural fantasy traditions congregate and mix. The system should only ever be described as modern or contemporary fantasy. The "urban" is merely a setting.

The urban element is a major trope of the genre from its roots in fiction. Saying "urban is merely a setting" is like saying for Space Opera "laser/blaster guns are merely another weapon". Yes, you can play a Space Opera game without laser guns blasting away, but they are so common in the fiction as to be ubiquitous, and it is probably fair to build you game with the assumption that such things are present.

Same with Urban Fantasy - yes, you can play such a game in a rural setting as well, but you have to make affordances when you do that, which most of the genre that uses the urban trope does not have to make.

VelvetViolet · Jun 24, 2019

Aldarc said:
In the context of the OP? I would say, yes, that appears to be the case:
The underlying desire seems to be for something that does for urban fantasy what D&D does for pseudo-medieval fantasy, especially without the various lore/edition/setting baggage of WoD.

Yes.

Not only that, I'm interested in analyses and discussion of world building and themes. There is huge potential yet to be tapped here.

I'm interested in challenging our conceptions of how monsters are supposed to work. Fiction like American Vampire and Dresden Files posit settings where multiple different types of, say, vampires and werewolves co-exist. Fiction like Lost Girl treats all monsters as essentially vampiric in nature, even if they feed on abstract concepts like dreams and anger.

I'm interesting in analyzing what makes these monsters tick in our minds. What makes the different varieties of vampires identifiable as vampires? What makes the different werewolves identifiable? For example, both Vampire: The Masquerade and Feed use the internal struggle between humanity and vampirism as a thematic conflict. Werewolves are liminal beings, existing between human and animal yet gaining supernatural insight and knowledge from this.

I'm interested in exploring less popular and more esoteric ideas. For example, The Everlasting had original concepts for sin-eating gargoyles and immortal grail questers among others. Monsterhearts has a wide variety of both official and fan-made "skins" representing metaphors for humanity, like an ice queen with literal ice powers (The Frozen) or a kid whose "imaginary" friend is all too real (The Shadow).

Aldarc · Jun 24, 2019

Hmmm...I am not sure whether any hypothetical "D&D of urban fantasy" could delve into that sort of complexity well. It's not as if D&D is good for exploring the complexities and nuances of the European Middle Ages or Renaissance. D&D does a fairly shallow job of exploring anything beyond the objectification of monsters as a source of loot, XP, and the colonial moral superiority of the adventurers.*

* "The Murder Hobo's Burden"?

Umbran · Jun 24, 2019

Aldarc said:
... and the colonial moral superiority of the adventurers.*

* "The Murder Hobo's Burden"?

Moral superiority of the adventurers, sure. It is only "colonial" if said adventurers move in and take over the place. Settling down is not in the Murder Hobo Manifesto - they are typically raiders, rather than colonizers.

dbm · Jun 24, 2019

BoxCrayonTales said:
I'm interested in exploring less popular and more esoteric ideas.

That definitely says to me that you want a toolkit or generic system that will let you game a lot of different scenarios. Finding an existing game for an esoteric niche is likely to be as easy as finding a winning lottery ticket.

Tony Vargas · Jun 24, 2019

BoxCrayonTales said:
Saturn bases aren’t bad. Where I get confused is why there’s a need to go so far beyond urban fantasy. Scifi and cyberpunk are present from the start.

Sci-fi for two of the 9 Traditions and 2-3 of the 5 Conventions (depending on how far the Progenitors are taking it in the story, and the Syndicate & NWO don't need to go there, at all) - cyberpunk for only one of each.

In no one plays a Virtual Adept or tangles with It-X, no cyberpunk. No SoE or Void Engineers, no space opera. You might get some Tom Clancy level sci-fi from the Progenitors or James Bond gadgets from the NWO, but on the PC side, you have 7 traditions & the Hollow Ones using non-technological magick.

If you /just/ want magic along the lines of Harry Potter to Harry Dresden, you're down to the Order of Hermes (and maybe the Verbena), but you /coould/ restrict your story like that, if you wanted.

TwoSix said:
In Mage: The Ascension they are, but not in Mage: The Awakening.

One of many things that was better about the oWoD. ;P

TwoSix said:
No problem. A lot of people just see the name "Mage" and the Sphere system and don't realize how different the two games really are. I agree with your point that is not a toolbox game, nor is it intended to be.

M:tA may not have been intended as a toolbox game, but it sure could be used as one.

M:tA, OTOH, not s'much.

(Hey, it's they're own fault for using 'Awekening.')

Aldarc said:
In the context of the OP? I would say, yes, that appears to be the case:
The underlying desire seems to be for something that does for urban fantasy what D&D does for pseudo-medieval fantasy, especially without the various lore/edition/setting baggage of WoD.

Lock it down into a class/level system that models a narrow, intractable, self-referent sub-genre?

WWGS 'splats' get awfully close to classes, so all that's missing is levels. ;P

Manbearcat · Jun 24, 2019

BoxCrayonTales said:
Yes.

Not only that, I'm interested in analyses and discussion of world building and themes. There is huge potential yet to be tapped here.

I'm interested in challenging our conceptions of how monsters are supposed to work. Fiction like American Vampire and Dresden Files posit settings where multiple different types of, say, vampires and werewolves co-exist. Fiction like Lost Girl treats all monsters as essentially vampiric in nature, even if they feed on abstract concepts like dreams and anger.

I'm interesting in analyzing what makes these monsters tick in our minds. What makes the different varieties of vampires identifiable as vampires? What makes the different werewolves identifiable? For example, both Vampire: The Masquerade and Feed use the internal struggle between humanity and vampirism as a thematic conflict. Werewolves are liminal beings, existing between human and animal yet gaining supernatural insight and knowledge from this.

I'm interested in exploring less popular and more esoteric ideas. For example, The Everlasting had original concepts for sin-eating gargoyles and immortal grail questers among others. Monsterhearts has a wide variety of both official and fan-made "skins" representing metaphors for humanity, like an ice queen with literal ice powers (The Frozen) or a kid whose "imaginary" friend is all too real (The Shadow).

I'm with [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] here.

I don't think the answer is a single general use Urban Fantasy TTRPGing system with theme/premise-neutral mechanics to rule them all (this almost always leads to an overwhelming GM presence in play trajectory to manufacture an experience...typically putting players in a significantly more passive position than in a game like Blades in the Dark). This is precisely why I brought up Blades in the Dark.

I think the answer is MORE niche Urban Fantasy TTRPGing systems with encoded theme/premise and a holisitic approach to system (all mechanics, reward cycles, ethos, participant authority) that relentlessly focuses on producing an emergent fiction and participant experience around those things.