What Licensed RPG Do You Wish Used A Different System?

[Thomas Shey]

First one bit of technicality - at least through Cybergen, Interlock was not the same as Fuzion. There are significant technical details that I can't check on the current edition, since I have no intent to get 2077.... Nor did I get V3, but friends of mine did...

I specifically don't like the lack of commonality across Fuzion system games. I don't know which bundle I got The Witcher in... but I got it...
So, anyway, I've not watched the Witcher, I've not read any novels... and I've only skimmed the mechanics.

I don't dislike interlock, but will note that, being 1d10 only, it's pretty swingy.

And notably the base version of Fuzion provided options for either D10 versus D10 or 3D6 versus 10; you can argue the latter was to try appease Hero fans, but it also functioned to hose down the swinginess considerably.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If it weren't stretching the definition of "licensed properties" I'd absolutely be listing pretty much everything that Onyx Path publishes that I play - Scion, Trinity Continuum, and especially They Came From...

They're settings that I like, but boy does even their slightly updated version of Storyteller feel clunky to me these days.

I think I'd call Storypath more than slightly updated, but that doesn't make your point less valid if you dislike die pools and success counting.

 

[Faolyn]

Using Urban Shadows as a basis, or going deeper to the roots of PbtA?

I don't have Urban Shadows (hadn't even heard of it until just now!), so I'm mostly making it myself, although I'll be adapting various ideas from different books. Right now I'm debating if I should do harm as per the original "clock," the Monster of the Week-style "hit points," or go with what Masks does, where there's no health to track at all but there are conditions that give you penalties to things.

If it weren't stretching the definition of "licensed properties" I'd absolutely be listing pretty much everything that Onyx Path publishes that I play - Scion, Trinity Continuum, and especially They Came From...

They're settings that I like, but boy does even their slightly updated version of Storyteller feel clunky to me these days.

Yeah. Sadly, my finished version will stay as a google doc rather than get published for exactly that reason. I'm not sure I could file off enough serial numbers to get away with selling it. Especially since I really want to do a few of the other splats. I could maybe get away with Vampire, but no way with Changeling: the Lost.

 

[overgeeked]

I wish many licenses would switch to 5e. Not because it would be the best fit, but because I'd get to play them.

Sad but true.

 

[overgeeked]

I was sold on the Sentinel Comics RPG after seeing a thread on Marvel & DC characters converted to this system. I've never seen one that could accommodate Batman, the Flash, and Superman in a PC party as easily as it can.

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. The single best superheroes RPG I’ve played. I’m obsessed with the genre and the games. It just sang.

 

[Umbran]

I don't have Urban Shadows (hadn't even heard of it until just now!), so I'm mostly making it myself, although I'll be adapting various ideas from different books. Right now I'm debating if I should do harm as per the original "clock," the Monster of the Week-style "hit points," or go with what Masks does, where there's no health to track at all but there are conditions that give you penalties to things.

Gotcha. The 1st Edition of Urban Shadows is available from DriveThruRPG for $10. The second edition has had its crowdfunding, but I don't think it is out yet.

Having played it a bit, it is kind of an attempt to look at Urban Fantasy kind of broadly - so it's world is like the collected space of White Wolf, or the world of Harry Dresden. So, there's one playbook for a mage, one for a vampire, one for a werewolf, one for a fae, and a few others, and they get differentiated by choices within the playbook.

(Oh, look, Magpie makes the playbooks available for free! https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0569/7716/2422/files/US_Playbooks_FINALv3.pdf?v=1643913088 )

For doing a game focusing on vampires, you'd want to blow out to several vampire (and ghouls, related mortals, etc) playbooks, so there'd be work to do there, at the very least. The bones of it might be useful to you, though.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. The single best superheroes RPG I’ve played. I’m obsessed with the genre and the games. It just sang.

I'm certainly obsessed with the genre. I like some of the games and dislike others. Rather fond FASERIP and games that carry a lot of its DNA, like Ascendent. Mutants & Masterminds is pretty good too.

 

[jdrakeh]

Babylon 5. Both of 'em. The d20 version is, as was the case with most IP shoved into the d20 system, a very poor fit. The Traveller version could've been good, but it re-used a lot of the bad d20 version content and suffered from Mongoose's then trademark editing gaffes. Meh.

 

[Umbran]

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. The single best superheroes RPG I’ve played. I’m obsessed with the genre and the games. It just sang.

Play of it was great.

I have several times thought of going to Cortex Prime, and seeing if I could cobble together something cogent around character generation, which I felt Marvel Heroic RP lacked.

Melding in something akin to the FASERIP Game's Power Stunts would be fantastic.

 

[Faolyn]

Gotcha. The 1st Edition of Urban Shadows is available from DriveThruRPG for $10. The second edition has had its crowdfunding, but I don't think it is out yet.

Having played it a bit, it is kind of an attempt to look at Urban Fantasy kind of broadly - so it's world is like the collected space of White Wolf, or the world of Harry Dresden. So, there's one playbook for a mage, one for a vampire, one for a werewolf, one for a fae, and a few others, and they get differentiated by choices within the playbook.

(Oh, look, Magpie makes the playbooks available for free! https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0569/7716/2422/files/US_Playbooks_FINALv3.pdf?v=1643913088 )

For doing a game focusing on vampires, you'd want to blow out to several vampire (and ghouls, related mortals, etc) playbooks, so there'd be work to do there, at the very least. The bones of it might be useful to you, though.

Thanks!