It’s August and that means that the annual #RPGaDAY ‘question a day’ is here to celebrate “everything cool, memorable and amazing about our hobby.” This year we’ve decided to join in the fun and will be canvassing answers from the ENWorld crew, columnists and friends in the industry to bring you some of our answers. We hope you’ll join in, in the comments section, and share your thoughts with us too… So, without further ado, here’s Day 30 of #RPGaDAY 2017!
#RPGaDAY Question 30: What is an RPG genre-mashup you would most like to see?
Michael J Tresca: The upcoming Netflix movie "Bright" is a lot like a modern, gritty Shadowrun without the cybernetics...and I think it would be a blast to play as a RPG.
Angus Abranson: There’s actually been a number I’ve been playing with over the last few years. Waiting to be developed further on that ‘rainy day’ when there’s nothing else to do… so yeah, may take a while. One is a kind of ‘19th Century Buffy The Vampire Slayer” where you’re playing Hunters tracking down the Wyrd. Magic, demons, angels, fey, and other aspects of the supernatural all exist and the 19th century setting is actually part of a much larger sequence of games that goes all the way back to The First Horizon (or The Thirst), which takes place on the cusp of the Stone Age and the Bronze Age, as the first major cities are appearing, First Horizon takes place in this forgotten section of pre-history but the events and outcomes will ripple through the ages of man that follow…
Humankind is still largely a nomadic species, but cities and kingdoms have started to develop in the Near East and their influence and trade across the continents connected to them.
It is also a time of horror and survival against the odds.
A generation or two ago saw the God (insert name) light up the night sky in battle with (insert name). The chariot he was riding was destroyed and broken into a thousand shards. The shards streaked through the sky in all directions, with a thunderous noise, crashing into the Earth and Sea all over the planet. The sky became dark for a few seasons and crops and livestock struggled, and humans were afraid… but not as afraid as they would become when the skies lightened again as something else hunted the forests, the seas, the plains, the mountains, the day and night… and not only hunted the same food that the humans needed to feed the tribes but also hunted them…
First Horizon is the story of the introduction of the ‘terrors’ that would become the essence of many folktales and nightmares. An alien entity was shattered into a million shards as its ship/body collided into Earths atmosphere. It thirsts to be reunited as a whole, but due to the trauma of its separation, it has forgotten what it was. Its many parts hunger to be reunited but are unaware that is the cause of their hunger and instead feasts upon the dreams, nightmares, worship, fear and flesh of the sentients that inhabit this world.
Many of the shards forms will be remembered through tales for millennia to come – be it wolves that stalk the night, mighty snakes that fly in the skies or burrow under the sands, or creatures that lurk in shadows drinking the blood from our bodies and draining our souls.
The primary setting is in the near/middle east in the deserts of nomadic travellers. You are a Hunter of demons that plague humanity. Other areas can be developed in this time but the game also lends itself to ‘future’ timelines as The First/Thirst will grow in power as its parts start to reunite. Parts of The First will become the Gods/Pharoahs of Egypt and build the Pyramids, parts will remain disjoined and plague Dark and Middles Ages Europe as vampires, werewolves and other horrors, some will take the forms of angels and demons and make deals with humans wanting magick and/or power in the reign of Victoria. Some will travel with man back into the stars many millennia from now…
Mike Mason (Chaosium; Games Workshop): What is a RPG genre-mashup you would most like to see? I’d like to write a game taking its cues from Hammer Horror – Noir – Folk Horror – Urban Magic – with some dinosaurs thrown in. That, and a Dune – Pendragon mashup. The other one I’d like to do is a Clark Ashton Smith – Urban Magic – End Time collective.
Stephanie McAlea (Stygian Fox Publishing, The Things We Leave Behind): Fantasy world characters fighting an advanced alien invasion. Or resistance fighters post Russian or Chinese invasion.
Simon Brake (Stygian Fox): Mid 20th Century Era Fantasy? Something like Warhammer Fantasy World or Fighting Fantasy’s Allansia, but updated to a period around the World Wars, and drifting into the Cold War between fantasy races afterwards. No longer is it simple adventurers breaking into villain’s lair – instead it’s archaelogists and spies crossing into other countries in their name of their own nation. I don’t really know. I’m making that up on the fly. I was struggling to think of any genre mash-up that HASN’T been done already.
Eran Aviram (Up to Four Players; City of Mist): Post-apocalyptic super-heroes. I have an almost-ready setting that's kind of like Brandon Sanderson’s The Reckoners series. Only I did it in the 90's, so I win.
T.R. Knight (Freelance Editor): Gritty post-apocalyptic meets high fantasy. Oh yes, I want a serious version of Thundarr the Barbarian. There are some great post-apoc science fiction games and lots of great fantasy games. Numenera feels too clean and almost space opera. Earthdawn had elements but not the grittiness of a fallen post-apocalyptic earth. Rifts and TORG come the closest but they rely too much on the science fiction aspects. I want more fantasy with just elements of the former technology and civilization thrown in. “Demon dogs!”
Rich Lescouflair (Alligator Alley Entertainment; Esper Genesis 5E): Steampunk and Dinosaurs - was thinking of doing it myself.
Dave Chapman (Doctor Who RPG; Conspiracy X 2.0): I've a strange desire to see a mash up between a zombie game like All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and a mech game. I had this weird vision of either giant zombies like Attack on Titan, or piles of zombies in humanoid form, fighting hastily crafted mechs like a scrapyard Pacific Rim.
Simon Burley (Golden Heroes, The Super Hack): Short answer - as someone who's learnt the trick of creating bespoke RPG rules, if there was a mash-up I wanted to see I would write the game. (Eg. Inspired by the film "Bubba Ho Tep" I hacked my own rules to recently run a game, at a convention, where the players played famous people the world thought was dead defending their Secret Government Retirement Village from an invasion.) The long answer, however, is that I'm watching everyone else's answers to this question with bated breath. If loads of people say they want to see, say, a mash up of weather satellites and Knights in armour, (and it's within my interest and capabilities) you can expect to see "The Storm Knights" RPG appear in pretty short order.
Ken Spencer (Rocket Age; Why Not Games): Genre mash-ups are great, and I would love to see some really and truly out there ones. Steampunk- sword and sandals. RomCom cyberpunk. Procedural starship shipping and receiving.
Mike Lafferty (BAMF Podcast; Fainting Goat Games): I really never get tired of alternate takes on the Western genre or alternate takes on WW1.
I’d like to see a few less Cthulhu genre mashups. The last few years, it’s gotten to where Cthulhu in RPGs is like pumpkin spice flavor in the Fall in the US. They just put it in everything and it’s not always an improvement.
Federico Sohns (Nibiru RPG): I'd like to see more low-sci fi settings with evocative and simple mechanics being done. We have a lot of high octante, high sci-fi that just so happens to have, in many cases (and in my opinion) clunky or kinda-old-school mechanics.
Mike Myler (EN Publishing, Legendary Games): Everything but d20-based and using a class levelling system.
****
Originally created by Dave Chapman (Doctor Who: Adventures in Time & Space; Conspiracy X) #RPGaDAY is now being caretakered by the crew over at RPGBrigade. We hope you’ll join in, in the comments section, and share your thoughts with us too!
#RPGaDAY Question 30: What is an RPG genre-mashup you would most like to see?
Michael J Tresca: The upcoming Netflix movie "Bright" is a lot like a modern, gritty Shadowrun without the cybernetics...and I think it would be a blast to play as a RPG.
Angus Abranson: There’s actually been a number I’ve been playing with over the last few years. Waiting to be developed further on that ‘rainy day’ when there’s nothing else to do… so yeah, may take a while. One is a kind of ‘19th Century Buffy The Vampire Slayer” where you’re playing Hunters tracking down the Wyrd. Magic, demons, angels, fey, and other aspects of the supernatural all exist and the 19th century setting is actually part of a much larger sequence of games that goes all the way back to The First Horizon (or The Thirst), which takes place on the cusp of the Stone Age and the Bronze Age, as the first major cities are appearing, First Horizon takes place in this forgotten section of pre-history but the events and outcomes will ripple through the ages of man that follow…
Humankind is still largely a nomadic species, but cities and kingdoms have started to develop in the Near East and their influence and trade across the continents connected to them.
It is also a time of horror and survival against the odds.
A generation or two ago saw the God (insert name) light up the night sky in battle with (insert name). The chariot he was riding was destroyed and broken into a thousand shards. The shards streaked through the sky in all directions, with a thunderous noise, crashing into the Earth and Sea all over the planet. The sky became dark for a few seasons and crops and livestock struggled, and humans were afraid… but not as afraid as they would become when the skies lightened again as something else hunted the forests, the seas, the plains, the mountains, the day and night… and not only hunted the same food that the humans needed to feed the tribes but also hunted them…
First Horizon is the story of the introduction of the ‘terrors’ that would become the essence of many folktales and nightmares. An alien entity was shattered into a million shards as its ship/body collided into Earths atmosphere. It thirsts to be reunited as a whole, but due to the trauma of its separation, it has forgotten what it was. Its many parts hunger to be reunited but are unaware that is the cause of their hunger and instead feasts upon the dreams, nightmares, worship, fear and flesh of the sentients that inhabit this world.
Many of the shards forms will be remembered through tales for millennia to come – be it wolves that stalk the night, mighty snakes that fly in the skies or burrow under the sands, or creatures that lurk in shadows drinking the blood from our bodies and draining our souls.
The primary setting is in the near/middle east in the deserts of nomadic travellers. You are a Hunter of demons that plague humanity. Other areas can be developed in this time but the game also lends itself to ‘future’ timelines as The First/Thirst will grow in power as its parts start to reunite. Parts of The First will become the Gods/Pharoahs of Egypt and build the Pyramids, parts will remain disjoined and plague Dark and Middles Ages Europe as vampires, werewolves and other horrors, some will take the forms of angels and demons and make deals with humans wanting magick and/or power in the reign of Victoria. Some will travel with man back into the stars many millennia from now…
Mike Mason (Chaosium; Games Workshop): What is a RPG genre-mashup you would most like to see? I’d like to write a game taking its cues from Hammer Horror – Noir – Folk Horror – Urban Magic – with some dinosaurs thrown in. That, and a Dune – Pendragon mashup. The other one I’d like to do is a Clark Ashton Smith – Urban Magic – End Time collective.
Stephanie McAlea (Stygian Fox Publishing, The Things We Leave Behind): Fantasy world characters fighting an advanced alien invasion. Or resistance fighters post Russian or Chinese invasion.
Simon Brake (Stygian Fox): Mid 20th Century Era Fantasy? Something like Warhammer Fantasy World or Fighting Fantasy’s Allansia, but updated to a period around the World Wars, and drifting into the Cold War between fantasy races afterwards. No longer is it simple adventurers breaking into villain’s lair – instead it’s archaelogists and spies crossing into other countries in their name of their own nation. I don’t really know. I’m making that up on the fly. I was struggling to think of any genre mash-up that HASN’T been done already.
Eran Aviram (Up to Four Players; City of Mist): Post-apocalyptic super-heroes. I have an almost-ready setting that's kind of like Brandon Sanderson’s The Reckoners series. Only I did it in the 90's, so I win.
T.R. Knight (Freelance Editor): Gritty post-apocalyptic meets high fantasy. Oh yes, I want a serious version of Thundarr the Barbarian. There are some great post-apoc science fiction games and lots of great fantasy games. Numenera feels too clean and almost space opera. Earthdawn had elements but not the grittiness of a fallen post-apocalyptic earth. Rifts and TORG come the closest but they rely too much on the science fiction aspects. I want more fantasy with just elements of the former technology and civilization thrown in. “Demon dogs!”
Rich Lescouflair (Alligator Alley Entertainment; Esper Genesis 5E): Steampunk and Dinosaurs - was thinking of doing it myself.
Dave Chapman (Doctor Who RPG; Conspiracy X 2.0): I've a strange desire to see a mash up between a zombie game like All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and a mech game. I had this weird vision of either giant zombies like Attack on Titan, or piles of zombies in humanoid form, fighting hastily crafted mechs like a scrapyard Pacific Rim.
Simon Burley (Golden Heroes, The Super Hack): Short answer - as someone who's learnt the trick of creating bespoke RPG rules, if there was a mash-up I wanted to see I would write the game. (Eg. Inspired by the film "Bubba Ho Tep" I hacked my own rules to recently run a game, at a convention, where the players played famous people the world thought was dead defending their Secret Government Retirement Village from an invasion.) The long answer, however, is that I'm watching everyone else's answers to this question with bated breath. If loads of people say they want to see, say, a mash up of weather satellites and Knights in armour, (and it's within my interest and capabilities) you can expect to see "The Storm Knights" RPG appear in pretty short order.
Ken Spencer (Rocket Age; Why Not Games): Genre mash-ups are great, and I would love to see some really and truly out there ones. Steampunk- sword and sandals. RomCom cyberpunk. Procedural starship shipping and receiving.
Mike Lafferty (BAMF Podcast; Fainting Goat Games): I really never get tired of alternate takes on the Western genre or alternate takes on WW1.
I’d like to see a few less Cthulhu genre mashups. The last few years, it’s gotten to where Cthulhu in RPGs is like pumpkin spice flavor in the Fall in the US. They just put it in everything and it’s not always an improvement.
Federico Sohns (Nibiru RPG): I'd like to see more low-sci fi settings with evocative and simple mechanics being done. We have a lot of high octante, high sci-fi that just so happens to have, in many cases (and in my opinion) clunky or kinda-old-school mechanics.
Mike Myler (EN Publishing, Legendary Games): Everything but d20-based and using a class levelling system.
****
Originally created by Dave Chapman (Doctor Who: Adventures in Time & Space; Conspiracy X) #RPGaDAY is now being caretakered by the crew over at RPGBrigade. We hope you’ll join in, in the comments section, and share your thoughts with us too!
