Modern fantasy - your experiences?

[Crothian]

In the realm of Modern Fantasy Dreaming Cities by GoO is simply great. It presents varioation on the real world that incorperate modern fantasy ideas in them. THis book really has presented me with the settings I want for modern fantasy something that was always lacking in my eyes.

 

[arwink]

Imagine what would happen if the X-Files were co-written by Joss Whedon, and you have a fair idea of the tone for every Call of Ctuhulhu and d20 modern game I've run.

 

[sniffles]

I'm currently playing in a d20 Modern game using quite a lot of fantasy elements. The GM is basing it on a comic book, I think, so it's a sort of post-apocalyptic story, but the apocalypse was the partly the introduction of magic and fantasy creatures into the modern world.

Part of what makes it different from 'standard' d20 Modern is that some of the characters come from the present day and use exclusively Modern rules, while the others are from this magical post-apocalypse future and use a mix of PHB classes and Modern classes. For example, I'm playing a sorcerer/ranger/fast character.

While the concept is interesting, in play it's been a little less so. It's basically just traditional fantasy with guns and cars tacked on. :\

I'd really like to try GURPS Technomage some time. Anyone familiar with it?

 

[genshou]

Right before Pledge of Tyranny, we played a solo, high-level Urban Arcana game. The PC's backstory was fairly long and convoluted, involving a character undergoing the "Path of the Gods" (this player loves Earthdawn). While he was chasing a dracolich through its lair, that darned "black fog" rose up and drew the two of them through Shadow. The poor PC was surprised to find himself stripped of everything but his clothing (and that ceased to be magical), and in the middle of a street in Cairo, Egypt. And he couldn't speak the local language.

He was spotted by an elf who lived in the area, who took him to NYC and it was there that he was connected with Department-7 and ended up teaming up with a half-celestial Acolyte, a human techie, and a drow Thrasher. The four of them formed an elite anti-terrorist unit that operated out of a high-tech aircraft called "The Armoury". The game was very fun despite how dark the theme was, and while Solarus never learned the identity of the terrorist arch-nemeses he was up against (or the fact that they too were from another world besides Earth), my player and I both had fun to the end.

We're thinking about redoing that campaign once I get ahold of Mythic Earth, but Urban Arcana never felt like "D&D with guns" in that game despite the fact that most of the villains were casting spells and using incantations left and right.

 

[Wombat]

Yeah, I've played in some modern fantasy games; I also love several modern fantasy writers and I have found that there is an extreme disjunction between the two.

As far as writers go, you just can't go wrong with Charles de Lint. To my mind, he is what modern urban fantasy is all about -- subtlety, blending of cultures, low key tales, sadness, and unexpected beauty. Needless to say, this makes for rather poor gaming material. Emma Bull's War for the Oaks makes better setting material -- a war between the Seelie and Unseelie courts in the modern world, no holds barred, but most of humanity doesn't realize it is happening -- now that is a great idea!

As for games, well let's do the checklist...

Call of Cthulhu -- played in this twice, ran a mini campaign. It's okay, but doesn't really feel like a Lovecraft story. There is far too much in-game expectation to Go On With The Adventure, where most of Lovecraft's protagonists would have given up or gone mad after a single tale.

Shadowrun -- played in it twice (2 mini-campaigns). Hated the "bucket o' dice" system, found the notion of having the cybertech, medicine men, and orcs-n-elves all running around together to be beyond comprehensible. Only came back for the second game because a buddy was running it. Never again.

TORG -- played in it three or four times (1-2 one-offs, 2 mini-campaigns). fun, amusing, a rather more nuanced and explained mixed-genre than Shadowrun, but ultimately it just feels like "wouldn't it be cool if we could play all sorts of settings against each other?"

Kult -- played in in three times (a one-off and 2 mini-campaigns); one of the few times in a game that I actually felt afraid (not for me, but rather the shivver of the setting), this one is very creepy, very nasty, and should only played with consenting adults. That being said, it is an excellent game. Magic comes at great cost, therre is a sense of doom and forboding to everything you do. Is it still in print?

Over the Edge -- ran it three times, played in 2 mini-campaigns. This has one of the simplest, most easy-to-run systems I have ever run across. I used it once to introduce non-gamers to the world of rpgs and they loved it. Modern conspiracy freakiness, rather than necessarily magic, though the magic can be there as well. I've seen characters who were chartered accountants, paperboys, astronauts, pulp private detectives, Russian princesses in time warps, and a demoness from the 8th plane of Hell who had an extreme power over "SALE!" signs...

Unknown Armies -- played in this in one mini campaign, picked up the book, and am now looking forward to actually running it for a group. Again, a very simple, open, flexible system, three different possible levels of play (Street, World, Cosmic), all sorts of weirdness, odd magic, no other races (unless you really push it), interesting combat system, and generally fascinating.

So, bunch of different systems, bunch of different notions of what makes good "modern fantasy". Have fun with whatever you decide upon!

 

[Orryn Emrys]

I have only used the D20 MODERN system a couple of times... and it wasn't an overly "normal" game on either occasion. One, a Sliders-style dimension-hopping adventure called Red Shift, had the occasional supernatural development but was largely more of a sci-fi-ish game. The other, a kind of Constantine-slash-World of Darkness-inspired campaign entitled Shadow Walkers, was a serious foray into a supernatural world which lay directly beneath the perceptions and comprehension of the average man....

The following blurb introduced my players to the concept:

The SHADOW WALKERS campaign will focus on a loose-knit group of individuals who have become aware, in the wake of a near-death experience, of a darker realm that seems to exist beneath our own, unnoticed by men. With the alarming subtlety of a 72-car pile-up, their entire world has changed....

The shadow realm, as it has been dubbed by post-modern eccentrics, is, in effect, the "real" world. Creatures beyond the ken of humankind walk the streets just as you and I, but remain unnoticed by those incapable of perceiving, much less comprehending, them. The shadow realm has many layers, whereupon even those who are native to its idiosyncracies are frequently aware of only those elements that truly matter to them. It is a fey realm, haunted by undead predators and restless spirits, monstrous shapeshifters, angelic enforcers and creatures of hell. It is the world in which the gifted truly walk, practitioners of the mystic arts and those who were born with the third eye. And most importantly, it is the battleground upon which the fate of mankind is truly determined.

Some who acquire an awareness of this world become determined to ignore it, and are eventually capable of doing so. Some simply go mad, unable to reconcile the supernatural events they've begun to experience with the world as they believe it to be. A few, like you, are... different. Something about you allows you to accept, at some level, that this is the truth of reality... that somehow you are seeing clearly for the first time. Perhaps not immediately... it might take time to sink in....

Of course, you've always been different somehow. Better. A cut above the ordinary....

Though many of the enemies the PCs encountered were supernatural (demonic or undead or unique creatures they were unable to pigeonhole so easily), I did choose to use 93 Games Studio's Magic: The Science and Art of Causing Change PDF as a guide to developing an appropriate flavor and ruleset for mysticism in that particular campaign. It was, I daresay, a roaring success.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Yes; I played a fair amount of by-the-book Dark•Matter back in the day, and Call of Cthulhu is still one of my favorite games ever to play or to run. My games tend to be gritty, dark, conspiracy type games; kind of like a Rated R (for violence and horrifying images, although occasionally for nudity ) version of the X-files, with more focus on the occult and less on E.B.E.s.

That's almost exactly what I plan on running in GURPS someday.

Call of Cthulhu -- played in this twice, ran a mini campaign. It's okay, but doesn't really feel like a Lovecraft story. There is far too much in-game expectation to Go On With The Adventure, where most of Lovecraft's protagonists would have given up or gone mad after a single tale.

Several other authors continued producing works set in the Mythos universe after Lovecraft's death. The feel of these stories is more like the role-playing game.

 

[Psion]

I ran a Second World Sourcebook game and would likely do so again.

For those not familiar, Second World creates a twin-world setup, with the earth as we know it, and in the dimention next door, a magical twin. There is a logical, DM-tweakable arrangement of magic and technology, and some things work in one world and not the other.

It was an interesting game to run, the twin world setup creating some interesting situations. It was also very easy to wing because, well, I used my knowledge of places I have actually been to create backdrops much more detailed than those I could typically whip up for an ad hoc game. Also, I find second world a great place to run published adventures for some reason.

 

[painandgreed]

I've been running a Vampire game for the last two and half years. Characters are Vampires it is World of Darkness and they have to deal with werwolves, hedge mages, ghosts and fey. Most is straight WoD 1.2 but I changed the Changeling game to be something more like Neverwhere. It started with a standard Vampire gme based off the TV series Wild Plams and from there they've stolen items for mages, searched out a magic book to gain entrance to the party of the century, defended a faerie princess from the unseelie, had to deal with territorial werewolves, been hunted by cyborgs, and dealt with devil worshiping cultists, all while also having to deal with the typical vampire politics. Currently, one of the characters is talking to the ghosts that live in his apartment who have him running all over the place collecting their fetters and dealing with their unfinished business.

The main trouble with the WoD rulesets is that after two or three hundred experience points, the players are near as powerful as the centuries old NPCs and it gets hard to challenge them, at least combatwise without going over the top (which I did in the last story).

 

[genshou]

Has anyone else used Urban Arcana for a game that spanned at least two character levels? What were your impressions? What kinds of heroes/villains did your game have, and how fun was it to play in/GM?