kingpin000
Explorer
The One Ring is the best RPG to play in the Middle Earth setting.
Best Licensed RPG: Discuss the Best Adaptation of a Movie/Book to an RPG that You've Ever Played!
aramis erak
Legend
Top? The One Ring. It enforces the genre with mechanics, while not getting in the way of the genre.
Marvel Heroic does the MCU pretty much spot on. (I like Sentinel Comics better, but it's not an adaptation of a book nor movie, but of another game)
Alien rounds out the top 3. It is fun watching players cringe at new stress dice...
Several more come in as a tier...
Advanced Marvel Super Heroes (AMSH), Firefly, WEG Star Wars 2E (but not the Revised and Expanded travesty) and FFG Star Wars. I'll note also: AMSH caneasily be adapted to non-supers just like Champions can.)
Then, following those, Dragonlance Fifth Age - it's a beautiful adaptation of the darkest novels about Krynn. (Unfortunately, few seem to have liked them, nor the game.)
Next is Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game - it does the older marvel movies nicely.
Now, we get to the one likely to be most controversial: Starships & Spacemen 1E. (I detest the 2E version.) No Trek game as captured the feel of TOS/TAS so well. I liked FASA-Trek. I liked LUG. I like some of the ideas in Modiphius-STA but not the game overall. I liked the fluff in Decipher Trek, but not really thrilled with the game. And while I love Prime Directive 1E, PD1 isn't doing Trek in the same sense.
kingpin000
Explorer
It was created to play superhero comics very well, especially when it comes to different power levels of the heroes.
I noticed that players, who are not so into comics, don't like this equalization when the team consists of a range from Hawkeye to Hulk. Very strange...
I think STA works for the TNG-era better than the other Star Trek RPGs but the TOS era is a tricky one.
aramis erak
Legend
Having run several campaigns, I don't think STA is a good game, period, at least not as written. It has some good ideas: secondary characters, the Char gen process, the determination/value tie-in... but the more I deal with 2d20, the less I like the core engine. Effort of the character (in terms of momentum spent for extra dice) is the singularly most important factor in success, swamping out most other concerns.
It's also very hard to create realistic threats, the mechanics fail to enforce nor strongly encourage genre tropes.
And it really does focus on the TNG feel. It lacks the grittiness needed for DS9. Enterprise era doesn't even get official adventures, despite being in their license.
Yes, well, the Cortex+ core is designed from the idea that all characters should be... I guess I'd say narratively balanced? Cortex+ would allow you to have Superman and Jimmy Olsen in the same adventure, and Jimmy would somehow manage to be relevant to events, even though he's just this guy. This is a fine representation of actual comics, in which relatively low-powered people still make a difference.
This falls apart if your approach to comics is about the power of superpowers, instead of the power of the narrative.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
TOR is my top pick, without question.
The Firefly and Dragon Age games do a good job of allowing games that feel set in their worlds, as does the Dresden rpg, but none come close to really strongly pushing a game toward the feel of the world even with a group that normally plays quite differently, without feeling forced.
The game just promotes and rewards the behaviors and mindset of playing heroes in Middle Earth, in a story retold by a companion many years later.
That said, the one thing I almost feel it’s missing is a way for a player to revise the narrative during play. Something like other games’ “flashback” mechanics.
But, then, that would maybe push it further toward storybook fantasy and less toward LoTR. But OTOH IMO The Hobbit is that, and The One Ring focuses more on the Hobbit than LoTR (taking place between the two.
Either way, it’s the best I’ve ever seen for depiction of the source material in play.
The Firefly and Dragon Age games do a good job of allowing games that feel set in their worlds, as does the Dresden rpg, but none come close to really strongly pushing a game toward the feel of the world even with a group that normally plays quite differently, without feeling forced.
The game just promotes and rewards the behaviors and mindset of playing heroes in Middle Earth, in a story retold by a companion many years later.
That said, the one thing I almost feel it’s missing is a way for a player to revise the narrative during play. Something like other games’ “flashback” mechanics.
But, then, that would maybe push it further toward storybook fantasy and less toward LoTR. But OTOH IMO The Hobbit is that, and The One Ring focuses more on the Hobbit than LoTR (taking place between the two.
Either way, it’s the best I’ve ever seen for depiction of the source material in play.
Tony Vargas
Legend
GURPS has done the best-researched licensed RPG supplements I've seen, even if the system hasn't always been up to it, they make great resources.
The two that stood out for me were Humanx and Urth of the New Sun - presumably because they're something obscure enough no one else'd ever do an RPG of them, and I was a huge fan of both.
d6 Star Wars also seemed to capture it's subject better than most licensed RPGs. Attempts at Star Trek, OTOH, just awful.
The two that stood out for me were Humanx and Urth of the New Sun - presumably because they're something obscure enough no one else'd ever do an RPG of them, and I was a huge fan of both.
d6 Star Wars also seemed to capture it's subject better than most licensed RPGs. Attempts at Star Trek, OTOH, just awful.
The Crimson Binome
Hero
The issue with licensed games is that most source material relies heavily on narrative convention in order to tell its story. If you try to put out a ruleset which describes how the world actually works, then it falls flat in execution; it becomes obvious that the events of the source material were contrived, rather than logically following from how the world (supposedly) works. Or else you end up with a game that actually operates on narrative convention, which is even worse.
That being said, I've heard good things about Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game.
That being said, I've heard good things about Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
Call of Cthulhu is probably still my favorite. Gritty, allows characters to focus on skills that may seem esoteric to some investigators but are really helpful.
DC Adventures/Mutants and Masterminds 3 has become my superhero game of choice, though we really haven't used it for playing in the DC universe. We have mainly used the DC character content as resources and inspiration for stuff in the campaign we're running in.
James Bond 007 is really good. Ran a one-shot out of it for a spy themed convention and had a good time with it.
DC Adventures/Mutants and Masterminds 3 has become my superhero game of choice, though we really haven't used it for playing in the DC universe. We have mainly used the DC character content as resources and inspiration for stuff in the campaign we're running in.
James Bond 007 is really good. Ran a one-shot out of it for a spy themed convention and had a good time with it.
Neonchameleon
Legend
Seconded to both Leverage and Marvel Heroic Roleplaying; @Cam Banks time making Cortex+ games with Margaret Weis Productions produced some excellent games that are really good fits for the source material. Even Smallville was excellent.
