Night Watch -- What system?

[jdrakeh]

To OPs original guestion: I think that World of Darkness is the only system that incorporates the cinematic battles and supernatural abilitites well enough.

The reason that I discounted the WoD is because 98% of it has nothing to do with Night Watch. Specifically, none of the supernatural creatures in Night Watch resemble those in the WoD on anything more than a purely superficial level and supernatural abilities (including magic) don't seem to work anything like they do in the WoD. You'd essentially have to rewrite the entire game line to make it resemble Night Watch, not just adjust some fluff.

The only supernatural abilities that vampires possess in the film are the ablility to enter the Gloom and the ability to call prey using a psychic lure of sorts. And in the WoD the former power is reserved almost exclusively for werewolves (entering the Umbra). For shapechangers, transformation to animal form is a swift (almost instantaneous) process in Night Watch, whereas it takes place in cumbersome stages in the WoD.

Then you get to all of the weaknesses/vulnerabilities that WoD creatures possess, which Night Watch Others don't. Or the weaknesses that Night Others possess that WoD creatures don't. And, man, don't forget the psychic powers so prevalent in the films. Or the symapthetic magic.

To do all of that in the WoD, you'd need to buy a minimum of four core books, ignore large swaths of them, rewrite other swaths, and still need a couple of supplements to boot. That simply seems totally impractical (both financially and time-wise)

I'm starting to think that Danny A. may be right. . . this might be a job for something like GURPS.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

The final movie - don't no what it's called - 'mid-afternoon watch?'.... Is meant to be the ultimate battle between good & evil...

The series has four novels:
NightWatch
DayWatch
Dusk Watch (AKA Twilight Watch)
Final Watch

IIRC, there's three films:
Nightwatch
DayWatch (released in Russia, no word of a US date yet)
DuskWatch

 

[shurai]

I just got BESM 3rd Edition, which might be a good choice. It's a fairly light do-anything system contained in a single rulebook.

 

[Pyrex]

What game system would you use for this?

I believe there's an RPG coming based on the TV-show Supernatural that uses the same engine that the Serenity rpg uses; might be worth looking into.

 

[diaglo]

my watch stopped.

i'd say go Amber.

 

[jdrakeh]

DayWatch (released in Russia, no word of a US date yet)

Summer 2007 according to the IMDB.

 

[Clueless]

Hm, don't remember that much wuxia in the movie. What I do remember is that the central character was probably the least-badass vampire hunter I've ever seen. Still a cool movie though.

That's cause he wasn't a vampire hunter. He was a sys admin / programmer who got dumped into the position of field agent b/c of the girl. All of them can go into Twilight, not just the vampires (a thing not played up well in the movie).

I strongly suggest reading the book - it explains the background of the powers much better. And gives you a much deeper feel for how the magic truly works. And it's ten times better than the movie - and you know how good the movie was. Heck, that movie really only covered say... the first third of the first book.

I'd go with GURPS Voodoo, or use the rules but not the setting of Mage - and just tweak that single system for it - treating vampires and werewolves as specialized mages within the system, and revising the paradox system to handle Light/Dark debt (again, read the book guys).

Part of the reason I say Mage here is because the cinematic effects some of you guys are mentioning - the fights, the car scenes... those are magic fueled in the books. You've indirectly highlighted the difference between vulgar and non-vulgar magic in Mage by assuming those cinematic effects weren't magically fueled and would need mechanics like those in Feng Shui to handle.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

I've seen the second film Daywatch, and it was much better.

(In case you all call BS, it was a "special copy" our Russian friend downloaded and
had to hand-edit the sub titles to make sense )

 

[EditorBFG]

I've seen the second film Daywatch, and it was much better.

(In case you all call BS, it was a "special copy" our Russian friend downloaded and
had to hand-edit the sub titles to make sense )

To confirm MrFilthyIke, it can be downloaded, but subtitling is an issue. Not that I endorse illegal downloading, of course.

As for system: Unknown Armies?

Someone mentioned Feng Shui, I think that would be a good fit, since Night Watch is like a Russian version of a Hong Kong film in some ways. Also, I think d20 Modern might work, since you could cherry pick all of D&D/d20 fantasy for individual powers/characters. Depends on how much work you want to put in.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

I just got a copy of the old edition of Nightlife, and I think it would work fairly well, especially where PCs become less human as they develop their powers. This is something that was touched on in the book a lot more than in the movie.

But, since Nightlife's OOP (although available as overpriced PDFs), I think Cinematic Unisystem would be my choice. The Cinematic variant is found in Buffy, Angel, and Army of Darkness, and I think it's supposed to get it's own book one of these days. Just take the magic and supernatural rules for Witchcraft, alter them to fit the Night Watch mythology, and use the drama points and combat from Cinematic US.

Something like GURPS might work, but you'd have to find a way to make combat less deadly. I haven't seen 4e, but previous GURPS characters seemed pretty vulnerable.

Unknown Armies would be good for the base system (and some of the ritual magic), but you'd have to do the supernatural stuff pretty much from scratch.

Hmm... Spycraft was always pretty cinematic, and Dark Inheritance 2nd ed used the Spycraft 1.0 rules. I've barely looked at the setting, but it might have enough supernatural rules to get by. In the novel, the two sides of Light and Darkness were run pretty much like spy agencies, so having Spycraft classes such as Hacker and Pointman wouldn't be too much of a stretch.