Licensed Role-Playing Games: Threat Or Menace?

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Let's just get the controversial statement out of the way: I'm not a fan of licensed settings in role-playing games. Today's column is rolling out of a Skype conversation that I had with a friend the other day. There's a lot of cool RPGs out there that are based upon cool movies, comic books, novels and cartoons. None of them are bad, and I'm not trying to call out licensed games or anything, but this column is going to be an exploration of different tastes and approaches to gaming. I know, something that I never do.

Before we get too far into things, let me just say that the headline for this article is a joke. In 1980 something amazing happened to role-playing games: the first licensed RPG was published. Just in case you don't know, that was the Dallas role-playing game from SPI. Yes, the first ever licensed role-playing game was based on the television show Dallas. I'm sure that the people at SPI thought that it was an excellent idea, I mean millions of people were watching the show. Millions. I was one of the 83 million people who were watching the episode of Dallas where JR was shot. I'm sure if I had known about the Dallas game I would have given it a try, but I also watched the reboot of the show a couple of years ago so I am a glutton for punishment.

But this opened the doors to every other licensed RPG over the years. From Rocky And Bullwinkle to The Dresden Files and from Masters of the Universe to Doctor Who, every licensed game out on the market has been sown from the seeds strewn by the Dallas game. There have been some really great games to come from those seeds, and a few mediocre ones but that is the breaks. The D6 System from West End Games was brought to us because of a number of licensed role-playing games and became a game of its own based on the system's strengths.

Now that I have you past the jump I am going to admit that this piece isn't just going to be about licensed games. I'm going to talk a bit about games with strong settings to them as well, but first a confession. I have never played an RPG in any of the following settings:

• Star Wars
• Star Trek
• Game of Thrones
• The Dresden File

The reasons that I haven't played in any of those settings are different, because a couple of them are settings that I'm not a fan of and wouldn't play in because of that. No, I'm not going to say which ones I don't like. But, for a variety of reasons, these represent some of the reasons why I don't play in licensed games. One of the biggest reasons that I don't play them is because the cool stuff has already been done in the primary media (and, really, how many times do we need to blow up the Death Star anyway?) and I think that the strategy of playing around the edges of the setting doesn't have as much of an appeal.

When I do play in an established, licensed, setting I will play around the edges of things. I've run a Doctor Who game where the players were a timelost group of UNIT soldiers and researchers trying to find a way home again. For some reason early on the group decided that they had to avoid the Doctor (I don't remember the reason the players came up with, but it was a suggestion of the group) so they would bounce around in a few episodes of the show, and a couple of novels, while trying to not be noticed by the actual characters of the show.

I also extend this to a number of the "stronger" settings that have developed out of role-playing games, too. The Forgotten Realms. Glorantha. Warhammer 40K. Now, I've never played in The Forgotten Realms, but all three of those settings have one thing in common, they have taken on a size and life of their own. They have been developed through their games, and in a couple of case other media as well, until they have become as involved as many licensed settings. This weight can make them as difficult to use as licensed settings, because their development has lead to what can be an overwhelming amount of detail over the years. After "What do I do that the media's characters didn't already do?" the next mark against some settings can be that there is so much detail that it can be overwhelming. How do you deal with that? Sometimes you have to just focus into a tiny part of the setting and work from there.

As a GM I'll say that there are settings that scare the bejeezus out of me because of the amount of detail involved in them. I'm not one to commit myself to the amount of detail that you get from a lot of members of fandoms, which sometimes means that what I think is a good amount of setting knowledge ("Yeah, I've seen all of the Star Wars movies in the theaters.") ends up only being the tip of the iceberg. What I consider to be knowledgeable about the setting and what someone who has read a lot of novels and tie-ins and comics and watched a bunch of television shows considers to be knowledgeable tend to be different things. This can sometimes lead to friction within a group when there are two dramatically different sets of expectations that can clash with each other. Being open about what a campaign based on a pre-made setting will and won't contain is a good starting point for trying to alleviate those frictions. This is why a campaign pitch of "We're going to be playing in the Star Trek and/or Star Wars universe" isn't a good starting point. Both of those settings contain multitudes, and the aspects that appeal to one person about them might not appeal to another.

I've written before about one of my favorite games, which happens to be a licensed RPG. I've always been more of a fan of DC Comics than Marvel Comics, but the system from TSR's classic Marvel Super-Heroes Role-Playing Game always had more of an appeal to me than most of the DC Comics role-playing games that have happened (although I will always have a weak spot for the D6 version that West End Games put out). Luckily, TSR was really good about putting out support in the form of converting Marvel characters to the game, and giving you background on their stories. I have also usually worked around this by having the Marvel characters typically out of the way ("Yeah, the Fantastic Four is in another dimension, or something, and their helpline gave this number instead."), leaving the player characters to do things without being overwhelmed by the more famous heroes. In our college Marvel Super-Heroes campaign this ended up becoming a metacommentary as the player hero group started calling themselves "The World's Most Convenient Super-Heroes." Sometimes a work around can become a fun part of the game.

Not wanting to sound like I'm focusing on the negative here, I'll talk about a couple of games I like and their settings. Both of these I've talked about before: Stormbringer/Elric and Palladium's Rifts. I am not a huge fan of fantasy fiction, but the work of Michael Moorcock has been a favorite of mine since I started reading him as a kid. While the Elric books were my favorite when I was younger, they've been supplanted over time by his Jerry Cornelius and Dancers At The End of Time cycles. Both of these series are woefully underrepresented in role-playing games. Admittedly my intimate knowledge of the Elric stories are probably why I felt comfortable with games set in it. The main issue that comes up with playing a game in any of Moorcock's worlds comes from his periodic revising of his stories, or revisiting an earlier concept in a later book and casting it in a different way. Moorcock's multiverse from the early Elric stories and from the more recent Second Ether books like Fabulous Harbors are almost two entirely different settings. You get the extra challenge of "Which version of how the author addresses things do we use?" thrown into the mix.

I came to terms with my uncritical love for Palladium Games' series of Rifts games and setting books a long while ago. I'm not much of a fan of class and level systems, but I will drop everything for the chance to run a Palladium game. It doesn't make much sense to me either, at times. And I don't know if there are any settings that typify "OMG THERE IS SO MUCH GOING ON IN THIS SETTING I CAN'T EVEN" than with Rifts. I've played in a game where there was a player with a character who was a Rogue Scholar and another character was a centaur that was a ROM-like Spaceknight knock off. Both of which were made using official character classes for the game. It becomes a worked example of "this is the stuff we pay attention to and let the rest become background noise" approach to a setting.

So, despite starting this column by talking about how I don't like to play in licensed or "heavy" settings, I end by talking about two of the settings that fit the criteria for things that I shouldn't like and then talk about why I like them. Much like our real lives, our gaming lives are filled with contradictions and sometimes it is better to focus on those contradictions rather than the absolutes. I think in the long run it ends up making us all happier as people and gamers.

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[Hussar]

Of course it's unlikely a GM would run a licensed system he is not familiar with, so is this a good argument? How do you feel about running a game in a setting you know really well? Perfectly understandable if it still doesn't appeal to you.

But, that's not quite the issue. When you get these settings which have mountains of material, to go from "I know the name of this setting and maybe a couple of general points - Dark Sun is that setting in the desert with no gods right?" - to "I am comfortable enough with my knowledge of the setting that I can run something in this setting and do a good enough job" is a LOT of work. The larger the setting, the bigger the wall you have to climb before you get to the point of "good enough".

I have no problems running in settings. I'm currently running in Primeval Thule. But, that's the point. To become "good enough" in PT required me to read one book because, well, that's all there is for the setting. One setting book and a bloody gorgeous map.

I'm not against running in published settings. I'm just no interested when that setting has an Encyclopedia series attached to it.

 

[Jhaelen]

My main problem with licensed material is many of the publishers feel they have to invent a new game system for their product. For many of them, it is their first attempt at a RPG system design so it will include many glitches, faults and flaws. The "Yet Another Game System" tends to limit my interest. More likely to buy a setting if it is designed for GURPS or D20.

My preference is the complete opposite: I have a strong dislike for generic systems, especially GURPS. It's the 'jack-of-all-trades is a master of none' issue: For a given particular setting, you'll always find mechanics that are better suited because they've been created specifically for this particular setting.

Imho, the only advantage of generic systems is that (ideally) they're already known to the players, so they don't have to learn new rules.

 

[knasser]

I think there's far more room to play in most major settings than people give them credit for. IE: in a Doctor Who setting you really shouldn't be running around with the Doctor. You're either cleaning up messes he leaves behind, making messes he's trying to clean up or somehow tangentially dealing with the waves made from some event he did. If this sort of play is "playing around the edges" that people are talking about, I think the edges are a lot more vast than they're being given credit for. Certainly there are some licensed properties that are a lot more narrow than others and similarly, even playing around the edges you may eventually have to tangent off from the established lore...but really, what's wrong with that? Besides, there are numerous systems where the "core" is very narrow and even the expanded lore covers only a fraction of worlds, races and events.

I get the argument being made but the chosen example was a mistake. The Doctor Who role-playing game by Cubicle 7 (very good, btw) explicitly supports playing as the Doctor. In fact, he's one of the pre-gen characters that comes with the game! Given the nature of the setting, there is almost no universe where you are more able to mess with canon and yet it still be canon. "Alternate timelines" are an in-setting thing, after all. And the game goes out of its way to emphasise how ordinary people are no less important to the story and setting than Time Lords et al. A character who is less powerful than the Doctor makes up for it in Story Points that can be spent to change the plot. Rose is equally important to the fate of the universe as the Doctor. He might have higher attributes, but she has enough Story Points to open the heart of the TARDIS at the right moment. The game is very emphatic about how to integrate with canon. It says: "have fun!"

Like I said, I get your argument but DW:AiTaS is one of my favourite systems and it's hugely about getting knee-deep in canon events and characters and having a good old splash. All if the pre-gens are canon characters you can play.

 

[Sunseeker]

I get the argument being made but the chosen example was a mistake. The Doctor Who role-playing game by Cubicle 7 (very good, btw) explicitly supports playing as the Doctor.

I'm gonna have to stop you right there. I'm not familiar with the Doctor Who game by Crucible 7. In fact I'm not familiar with any Doctor Who licensed RPGs. I named the property (instead of say, Star Trek or Star Wars) not the game, for no other reason than it was on my mind after watching a few episodes earlier in the week. I am simply familiar with the setting and the lore and it's a universe that if someone challenged me and claimed the universe does not provide enough room around the edges, I could reasonably argue that it does.

That's the core of my argument. Most major modern licensed properties have plenty of room around the edges and that even calling them "edges" is a bit false because there is so much space between the "core" and the "edge". So I think you're missing the forest of my post for it's blue, timey-wimey tree.

 

[knasser]

I'm gonna have to stop you right there. I'm not familiar with the Doctor Who game by Crucible 7. In fact I'm not familiar with any Doctor Who licensed RPGs. I named the property (instead of say, Star Trek or Star Wars) not the game, for no other reason than it was on my mind after watching a few episodes earlier in the week. I am simply familiar with the setting and the lore and it's a universe that if someone challenged me and claimed the universe does not provide enough room around the edges, I could reasonably argue that it does.

Thanks Kanye! I understood your argument. I said I wasn't disagreeing with your argument but simply that you had picked a bad example to illustrate which you had. Had the example been Lord of the Rings, Firefly, Star Wars, it would have supported your case. You picked one where there is a popular, officially licensed game which actually serves as a great counter-example. Not your fault - as you say, you're not familiar with any of the DW adaptations. So take it from me that it's about as contrary an example as you could have settled on.

That's the core of my argument. Most major modern licensed properties have plenty of room around the edges and that even calling them "edges" is a bit false because there is so much space between the "core" and the "edge". So I think you're missing the forest of my post for it's blue, timey-wimey tree.

I'm not missing anything. I understood your argument, I said your example is bad. The Doctor Who game is entirely compatible with messing with canon. It comes with big glossy full-colour pre-gen character sheets featuring the main characters for you to play. You said that in a Doctor Who game you should be playing around the edges. The game explicitly encourages you to play the Doctor himself. It contains rules for making your own time lords and the book suggests playing through canon stories and seeing how they turn out your way. You just picked the worst possible example as DW:AiTaS explicitly encourages you to mess with canon and mix things up. I'm not debating your argument as I made very clear. I'm just correcting you on your DW example.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

The Doctor Who game is entirely compatible with messing with canon. ... The game explicitly encourages you to play the Doctor himself.

If any licensed setting would support playing the various main characters it would be Doctor Who. I mean, how many different actors have played the Doctor? (Up to 13 now, I think.) How many different Companions? The writers themselves constantly mess with things. The whole secondary belief structure of the Doctor Who universe includes massive changes.

 

[EditorBFG]

"Hmm, I have nothing to write about. I think I shall meander around some of my thoughts on very old RPGs, then artificially insert a premise for web clicks that I neither believe in nor actually develop. Yes, I think I shall do that."

 

[Morrus]

"Hmm, I have nothing to write about. I think I shall meander around some of my thoughts on very old RPGs, then artificially insert a premise for web clicks that I neither believe in nor actually develop. Yes, I think I shall do that."

Don’t be a jerk.

 

[szarkel]

I think it is all about the basics, as a DM, GM a Keeper, or ST it is about weaving an entertaining tale of adventure and aplayer

 

[szarkel]

As a player participating in that. In the cosmic scheme no game is better than others if ran poorly and no setting is worse than others is played well.