Known IPs, settings, etc.. and you.

[aramis erak]

I remember seeing this on the shelf years ago. Never knew anybody who ran/played it.

the system's solid... fully intercompaitible with Buffy, Angel, and Ghosts of Albion.

 

[bloodtide]

This first depends on the amount of content.

Take Firefly. Lots of people love this ISP. But it's only a short TV show, a movie, a couple novels and comics....and a long lost out of print rpg book. So even if you have all of that...well, it's not too much content to use for a game. Alien is much the same a couple movies, novels and comics and an RPG book every decade or so....and that is it.

You really have to add to this type of IP.

On the other hand Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel and DC are overloaded with tons of content. And the problem here is the content is so much, that it just makes the IP a Kitchen Sink. Or a mess.

Star Trek is close to the worst as every three episodes or so they have a common item of tech that would alter the galaxy....but the show just "forgets" about it.

Star Wars is catching up fast as it expands.

And Marvel and DC might be the worst IPs for content as they have 75 ish plus years of content. Though, of course, modern stories forget about 75 years of content....


Though this does not even mention the Big Problem. Even if you take an IP and set a limit on what content you will use, you have this problem:

Anyone making new content just makes whatever they want and utterly ignores the setting of the IP. And most of them do it on purpose.

Star Trek does not have a Phaser Bazooka? Someone writes it in, and now it's Official Star Trek Lore.
So it can be odd to "stay in he flavor" or "lane" of an IP......when the IP just tosses anything and everything out there...constantly.

 

[aramis erak]

This first depends on the amount of content.

Take Firefly. Lots of people love this ISP. But it's only a short TV show, a movie, a couple novels and comics....and a long lost out of print rpg book. So even if you have all of that...well, it's not too much content to use for a game. Alien is much the same a couple movies, novels and comics and an RPG book every decade or so....and that is it.

You're missing the impact of the comics... content equal to 2-3 more seasons of the show, and considered canon by the Brothers Weedon.. Not a lot really needs be added to be playable.

Trek had a huge amount of non-canon material - some licensed, some fannon. If anything, FASA's issue was that they didn't have access to their primary preferred source, and so made parallels...
Canon was 79 released episodes of TOS, 22 episodes of TAS, and 2 movies. Total canon content? About the same as Firefly, provided one counts the comics.
The thing is, Trek had a lot of non-canon material, which the designers' note lament inaccessibility of under their license. but some made it in by back doors... John M Ford writing novels and supplements, as exemplar.
And the tech manual's Saladin and Hermes having the FASA-Trek Larsen and Nelson, differing in the nacelle struts, cheating their way into the beta canon.
But that secondary material was off limits, and the bulk of it post-dates FASA Trek.
LUG lamented likewise, but with more series and movies.

Star Wars, when WEG took it up, had 3 movies, a TV special, 2 seasons of bad kid's cartoons, 8 years of daily comics, under a dozen novels. What we so much take for granted as the SW Extended Universe was largely WEG's work - and Zahn noted that he was referred to WEG's RPG and Sourcebooks as they key canon reference. Essentially, WEG created the renewed demand Demand which lead to the (IMO, mediocre) prequels, and lots of novels.

If Firefly as a game weren't killed off by MWP closing games, it could have done for Firefly what WEG did for Star Wars.

 

[MGibster]

This thread is not about homebrewing from whole cloth. It is about folks that take known settings such as the numerous ones from D&D, and IPs such as Starwars, Marvel/DC, Alien, Game of Thrones, etc.. and make their own content. For folks who do this, do you cleave as close to lore as possible? Or do you take the foundation and run with it? Universal generic system or custom bespoke? What is your process?

I cleave as close to the lore as possible. If I'm running a Star Wars game, your character isn't going to be the one that blows up the Death Star or throws the Emperor down a shaft. Those were Luke, Leia, and Han's adventures, so you're going to be off having your own adventures elsewhere. I'm not going to sweat the tiniest of details, maybe according to Rebels this moff wasn't in charge of the sector at the time, but overall as the GM I'm going to present the universe of Star Wars as it is.

The reason I cleave as close to the lore as possible is because that's why we're there. If I'm playing Star Wars, Star Trek, or DC Heroes (remember that one?) I want to play in that setting not some alternate form. I don't want a Star Trek campaign were the Borg won and we're on the run or a DC Heroes campaign where Batman has killed the Justice League and we have to bring him down.

 

[Distracted DM]

For D&D etc. I ran established settings for years n years before I finally settled on a setting of my own that I've run for a decade now.

When I ran those settings I ran them because they were the setting- like @MGibster said, that's why we were there. Nowadays I'd run my own fantasy setting, but if it were scifi? Or Call of Cthulhu? I don't have as much invested in those as I do my own home fantasy setting- I might still run those established settings. Even Doomed Forgotten Realms seems interesting, and that's definitely not core FR but more of a "What-If!"

 

[Tonguez]

I've done superhero games simply by having a new team in a new area -eg The Pasifika (South Pacific) Avengers. I once did a cross-over for them linking in the Gargoyles Universe whereby the the cybernetic mercenaries Hyena and Jackal were intimidating the Mayor of Taupo (NZ) while their evil corporate employer starts drilling into the mystical energy source under the lake - which of course disturbs the local Aquatic gargoyles (taniwha), who cause a disturbance which alerts the S.P. Avengers -one of the local taniwha also gains Magma manipulation powers as the new champion.

Fate Accelerated does it all

 

[bloodtide]

The thing is, Trek had a lot of non-canon material, which the designers' note lament inaccessibility of under their license. but some made it in by back doors... John M Ford writing novels and supplements, as exemplar.

I'm not even counting the "non cannon" stuff......that just makes it beyond crazy. Take Star Trek...pick something...and chances are in the last 50 ish years you can find something with "star trek" on it with it in it.

Even just sticking to cannon can be a trip. Like OS Star Trek. Ok, in at least one episode they have communicator implants, so they can call the ship in orbit any time. But in every single other episode....and TNG, DS9, VOY...they always carry communicators. So the bad guys can take them away so they can't call the ship. It makes no sense to have the tech...and ignore it.

 

[schneeland]

Or do you take the foundation and run with it? Universal generic system or custom bespoke? What is your process?

It depends a bit how much lore exists around a particular IP and how well I know it already. But as a rule of thumb: I try to get the basics and the feeling right (otherwise, why play in the respective setting?), and expand on my own from there.
If there is a comprehensive setting book, I'm willing try to read it. At least if it's not too large - a few hundred pages are really the maximum in terms of dedicated setting material for me. Beyond that, I might skim through other material (e.g. regional guides), and I'm happy to pilfer existing adventure material.
I do think that a game where everyone has a very deep understanding of the setting and there is consensus on what is considered canon is great, but I neither have the group nor enough mental capacity for gaming to make this happen in practice.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I have been running a Ptolus game since the first backer content came out in 2006, but started off with a lightly detailed far corner of the map (the Prustan Peninsula, for those who own the book). I think I own 100% of the Ptolus content out there, including a bunch of Malhavoc Press stuff that mentions Ptolus even if it's not branded as such.

But it was only relatively recently that the play by post campaign that started in 2006 actually got to Ptolus, so it's included a bunch of homebrew stuff building on what the book says about the world and its religions. I also dropped Freeport into the southern ocean and incorporated a bunch of other stuff, both premade and homebrew, across the continent. (We've also run parallel campaigns and one-offs all over the world of Praemal.)

Since most of the setting is lightly sketched, it's really given me free reign to go nuts and incorporate a REH-style swords and sorcery area in Kem, political knights scheming in Rome-at-the-end-of-empire in Tarsis, etc.

I would be very uncomfortable with a setting that hemmed me in too much, and I'm glad that even the highly detailed city of Ptolus itself doesn't have every building listed or every NPC defined, even for some fairly major locations related to the Delvers Guild. I honestly can't wrap my head around DMing a highly detailed setting like late-2E Forgotten Realms; it would feel too much like homework for me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I remember seeing this on the shelf years ago. Never knew anybody who ran/played it.

When I toyed with running a Buffy campaign, I was going to pick up Army of Darkness to use as a supplement. (Nowadays, if I could get my group interested in a monster-hunting campaign, we'd just use Monster of the Week, I think, or one of the Dungeons & Demogorgons books like We Die Young.)