Desdichado
Hero
Nifty little thread on that in the d20 subforum, by the way.
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Define some genres
- Thread starter JPL
- Start date
Agent Oracle
First Post
Cheer'emon!
Wherever it is not the main character who is doing the actual fighting, but rather some subordinate beast which they coach towards voctory with such helpful phrases as "use agility to dodge!" and "Thundershock! Now!" (pokemon, Digimon, beyblades, any of a zillion silly game-based TV shows.)
Wherever it is not the main character who is doing the actual fighting, but rather some subordinate beast which they coach towards voctory with such helpful phrases as "use agility to dodge!" and "Thundershock! Now!" (pokemon, Digimon, beyblades, any of a zillion silly game-based TV shows.)
Desdichado
Hero
Is JPL still around, by the way? Haven't seen him in a little while...
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
Yeah, he posted on the DINO-PIRATES thread:J-Dawg said:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=163904
Still kicking.
Forgive my thread necromancy.
This is the greatest thread ever, and I want all the kids to see it and learn from it.
WOLDPUNK
From Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton. Planetary would be a contemporary example, as would League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the Anno Dracula series (and various other works) by Kim Newman. Various characters (or analogues) from different classic pulp, sci-fi, detective, and adventure fiction all coexist in the same continuum, and modern heroes and villains are often the literal or spiritual descendants of the classic heroes. My own INFINITE: Epic Modern is an RPG example.
This is the greatest thread ever, and I want all the kids to see it and learn from it.
WOLDPUNK
From Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton. Planetary would be a contemporary example, as would League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the Anno Dracula series (and various other works) by Kim Newman. Various characters (or analogues) from different classic pulp, sci-fi, detective, and adventure fiction all coexist in the same continuum, and modern heroes and villains are often the literal or spiritual descendants of the classic heroes. My own INFINITE: Epic Modern is an RPG example.
Tinner
First Post
What's a little thread necromancy among friends?
Here's two that I've had some fun with recently.
SPAGHETTI & SORCERY
Wild Bill Conan rides the plains of Hyboria hunting for desperados.
With his trusty six-shooter on his hip, he faces off with the Man with No Name, the Outlaw Josey Wales and other western varmints. By Crom those cattle rustlers will pay!
Basically Grim & Gritty Fantasy mixed up with a Spaghetti Western. Start with a little D&D, a little Shane, stir in some High Plains Drifter, and season with some Warhammer Fantasy.
GUYS & DAMSELS
It's 1939 in New York City, bullets fly over Broadway. The Oldest, Established, Permanent, Floating, Crap Game in New York offers all the action a fella could want, but to get in, you'll have to know the secret roads through Faerie. Changelings wearing a red carnation know that knocking at the Save-A-Soul Mission will open a hidden trod into the sewers with the nobles of the faerie court go to gamble, carouse, and play tricks on foolish mortals.
Part Changeling: The Dreaming, part Guys & Dolls. Mix Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Eve with the period fiction of Damon Runyon. Cast a young Marlon Brando ne'er-do-well Puck slowly falling in love with the mortal missionary Sister Sarah, Mix in Frank Sinatra as Nathan Detroit, sidhe prince of the city of New York, beset on all sides by demands from his rabble-rousing subjects. Throw in a little of Bill Willingham's Fables, and spice it up with the urban legends of NYC, and centuries of fairy tales - all kinds of fun!
Here's two that I've had some fun with recently.
SPAGHETTI & SORCERY
Wild Bill Conan rides the plains of Hyboria hunting for desperados.
With his trusty six-shooter on his hip, he faces off with the Man with No Name, the Outlaw Josey Wales and other western varmints. By Crom those cattle rustlers will pay!
Basically Grim & Gritty Fantasy mixed up with a Spaghetti Western. Start with a little D&D, a little Shane, stir in some High Plains Drifter, and season with some Warhammer Fantasy.
GUYS & DAMSELS
It's 1939 in New York City, bullets fly over Broadway. The Oldest, Established, Permanent, Floating, Crap Game in New York offers all the action a fella could want, but to get in, you'll have to know the secret roads through Faerie. Changelings wearing a red carnation know that knocking at the Save-A-Soul Mission will open a hidden trod into the sewers with the nobles of the faerie court go to gamble, carouse, and play tricks on foolish mortals.
Part Changeling: The Dreaming, part Guys & Dolls. Mix Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Eve with the period fiction of Damon Runyon. Cast a young Marlon Brando ne'er-do-well Puck slowly falling in love with the mortal missionary Sister Sarah, Mix in Frank Sinatra as Nathan Detroit, sidhe prince of the city of New York, beset on all sides by demands from his rabble-rousing subjects. Throw in a little of Bill Willingham's Fables, and spice it up with the urban legends of NYC, and centuries of fairy tales - all kinds of fun!
GreatLemur
Explorer
Ah, man, glad you did it. There's some very cool stuff in here...JPL said:
I've been thinking a little bit about the "tweenpulp" genre and how it hasn't been represented in RPGs. I'm speaking of action/adventure with kids [say, ten to seventeen] as the heroes. Johnny Quest is the main model, but I'd throw in Goonies and Spy Kids and the Hardy Boys and the Young Indiana
Jones Chronicles, too.
Most are the offspring of agents for one of those fictional "cool stuff" government organizations or think tanks, tasked with fringe scientific research, investigation of unexplained phenomena, and espionage work relating to the same [no moral ambiguity here --- this is a genuinely good bunch of people, a la MacGyver's Phoenix Foundation]. In addition to keeping the kids near Mom and Dad on long missions, the Foundation is also consciously trying to give these gifted kids a unique education, and therefore lets them participate in all kinds of neat stuff...which occasionally crosses the line from "cool field trip" into "exciting adventure."
Other PCs are the orphaned children of other agents, or "friends of the family," or gifted children that the Foundation has recruited for what amounts to a travelling "school for gifted youngsters" --- except in this case, the gifts are not mutant powers, they are simply the potential to excel in the field of Adventuring [due to natural leadership skills, or scientific genius, or whatever].
We encounter enemy agents and sinister scientists, travel to exotic foreign lands, track the Yeti, etc., usually with our ex-Spec Ops tutor trying to keep a close eye on us.
So...some expanded rules for playing kids as PCs...maybe some quasi-"occupations" to handle the kid archetypes [the Smart Kid, the Tough Kid, the Troublemaker, etc]. Some modified rules to keep things rated PG, especially the violence [probably including the M&M damage save]. Plenty of stats for tutors, parents, bodyguards, and rival kids. And maybe a one-shot style adventure with some loose ends to accomodate further adventure.
Throw in some conversion rules so you have the option of running the same kids as adults under the standard d20 Modern rules [just because the goons were stupid and no one ever really got hurt when you were 12 doesn't mean the same rules apply at 22]. In the alternative, you could set up a generational thing --- the kid PCs in an eighties adventure [they learn karate and find a pirate treasure!] are the grownup NPCs in a campaign set twenty years later.
Any thoughts?
Jones Chronicles, too.
Most are the offspring of agents for one of those fictional "cool stuff" government organizations or think tanks, tasked with fringe scientific research, investigation of unexplained phenomena, and espionage work relating to the same [no moral ambiguity here --- this is a genuinely good bunch of people, a la MacGyver's Phoenix Foundation]. In addition to keeping the kids near Mom and Dad on long missions, the Foundation is also consciously trying to give these gifted kids a unique education, and therefore lets them participate in all kinds of neat stuff...which occasionally crosses the line from "cool field trip" into "exciting adventure."
Other PCs are the orphaned children of other agents, or "friends of the family," or gifted children that the Foundation has recruited for what amounts to a travelling "school for gifted youngsters" --- except in this case, the gifts are not mutant powers, they are simply the potential to excel in the field of Adventuring [due to natural leadership skills, or scientific genius, or whatever].
We encounter enemy agents and sinister scientists, travel to exotic foreign lands, track the Yeti, etc., usually with our ex-Spec Ops tutor trying to keep a close eye on us.
So...some expanded rules for playing kids as PCs...maybe some quasi-"occupations" to handle the kid archetypes [the Smart Kid, the Tough Kid, the Troublemaker, etc]. Some modified rules to keep things rated PG, especially the violence [probably including the M&M damage save]. Plenty of stats for tutors, parents, bodyguards, and rival kids. And maybe a one-shot style adventure with some loose ends to accomodate further adventure.
Throw in some conversion rules so you have the option of running the same kids as adults under the standard d20 Modern rules [just because the goons were stupid and no one ever really got hurt when you were 12 doesn't mean the same rules apply at 22]. In the alternative, you could set up a generational thing --- the kid PCs in an eighties adventure [they learn karate and find a pirate treasure!] are the grownup NPCs in a campaign set twenty years later.
Any thoughts?
A couple of lessons I've learned about RPG genres: I think you can cross anything with H.P. Lovecraft, and I think you can cross anything with "tournament fighter." But I've never been 100% convinced of the viability of crossing tournament fighter with Lovecraft.
Maybe start with some 1920s boxers fighting in an underground bareknuckles circuit, and gradually make things weirder until the PCs are punching Things Man Was Not Supposed to Punch in a surreal otherworldly gladiatorial arena.
Maybe start with some 1920s boxers fighting in an underground bareknuckles circuit, and gradually make things weirder until the PCs are punching Things Man Was Not Supposed to Punch in a surreal otherworldly gladiatorial arena.