Search results

To continue with the analysis of urban fantasy… Settings like Shadowrun, Rifts, Magitech, etc fit into a fourth trend that I'll tentatively call gonzo urban fantasy. This trend is characterized by being weird and unique and depicting genres that so far seem limited to these games and haven't...

Ditto. I wish somebody would get a license from WotC to make a new edition of d20 Modern and revive TSR’s forgotten settings like Star Frontiers, Alternity, Amazing Engine, Gamma World, etc. Does anybody have a comprehensive list of retroclones of the old TSR games/settings?

You’re right. I have no idea. Yep Yes you can. That makes it very easy to reference and share them nowadays. But they’re over two decades old. Which is odd, because the PCs in WoD games are not really much better. Cannibals, cultists, terrorists… at least the nephilim aren’t trying to eat...

The problem with the game is that it intimidates potential players by frontloading all the invisible history rather than trying to ease players into it. There weren't any adventures provided to show groups how to run games. The rules were also complex, needlessly so, and in hindsight the...

Honestly, Nephilim is probably my favorite 90s urban fantasy game owing to the fusion of immortals, occultism, magic and monsters into one thing. Unfortunately it’s OOP, seems unlikely to get revived (at least in English), and wasn’t a good fit for BRP anyway. The French version released a...

I said at least three. There's clearly more. Shadowrun is a mix of urban fantasy and cyberpunk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_World#Sixth_Edition_(2003)

Then the problem is writing overpowered NPCs that the PCs cannot hope to oppose. We should not do that. Maybe the PCs are just that special. It is their campaign, after all.

I thought it was very disappointing how WotC is handling TSR's neglected IP. I really wish the Star*Drive and Star Frontiers and so on could get real re-releases and not just cameos in d20 Future more than a decade ago. WotC previously licensed Gamma World. Why not those?

So I'm noticing at least three broad trends in the design of urban fantasy and adjacent games. I'll refer to these as "shadow hunters", "modern occult conspiracy", and "supernatural soap opera". Shadow hunters. Urban fantasy meets horror. Under this play style, the PCs investigate spooky...

I was disappointed that the original settings weren’t making a comeback. The original books were taken down from Drivethrurpg in 2008 after WotC’s hissy fit and never came back. I would have bought them legally if they were available.

Interesting. In my readings of these games, they pretty much have nothing to do with Plato’s writing beyond the idea of an ancient advanced civilization. In Nephilim, Atlantis was the continent of the old races where they engineered humanity. In Mage: The Awakening, it was the first and last...

Good suggestion. I have a fix for that: PCs may be directly responsible for various historical events if desired. Maybe you dropped an apple on Isaac Newton, secretly fed abortifacients to Ann Boleyn, played muse to Lovecraft, or whatever. The problem there is that you’d frontload character...

Pity. I like the basic concept of immortal play. Since there aren’t any at present that are still actively supported, I was thinking of doing some work for an immortals game myself. Basically a mashup of all the immortals concepts that have come before. Citizens of Atlantis, reality warping...

They should hire Arne Niklas Jansson. Star Frontiers

The website is still up and you can download the third edition. Home I wonder where the writer went. Nowadays you can sell this stuff on drivethrurpg. The premise is a little bit similar to Nephilim, too. Much more so than the other immortal games. Immortal games were pretty trendy in the 90s...

There is the English Nephilim adaptation by Chaosium. It also has a mailing list group with archives going back to the 90s. Some of the material was adapted as generic magic rules in Enlightened Magic. The English adaptation isn't a faithful translation of the French version. It takes a lot of...

It seems that the only version available is a "basic version" on Drivethrurpg. The publisher planned to produce a new edition but this was delayed by the pandemic and a fire at the publisher's. Ouch! I did find a couple of less than glowing reviews, which paint it out as Highlander with the...

Just learned of Legacy: War of Ages, another WoD heartbreaker with a side order of Highlander. Surprised I didn’t hear about this before. I’ll check it out

I get you. I have a bunch of ideas for various genres I wanted to write prose for: urban fantasy, pulp fantasy, science fiction, grimdark, fairy tales, new weird, etc. The one I want to do most right now is military science fiction featuring a bug war. Urban fantasy is just not high on the list...