RPGs based off of Licensed Properties

[The Green Adam]

While it very much depends on the game as others have said, I seem to have something of a reputation among my friends and co-gamers(eh?) for running IP campaigns. I have GMed more games of Star Trek, Star Wars, DC Comics, Ghostbusters and Galaxy Quest (homebrew) then I have all original games and settings combined in my 32 years in the hobby.

I've also run and/or played in the universes of Red Dwarf, Marvel Comics, Lord of the Rings, Farscape, Mobile Suit Gundam, Macross, Patlabor, and one friend's crazy TV Superhero mish-mash (imagine a world where The Misfits of Science, Greatest American Hero, Knight Rider and Six Million Dollar Man were all real. Creepy and fun).

Star Trek remains a favorite and a 'specialty' of mine. IMHO its the single most fun RPG setting there is. You can quote me.

AD

 

[pawsplay]

Mayfair put out three editions of DC Heroes, plus a spinoff Batman RPG. There is still a DC Heroes/Blood of Heroes list that generates rather high traffic.

MERP was seemingly immortal. Star Wars D6 is still played today. TMNT I have seen played long out of print. Robotech is once again in print.

It appears to me that licensed games have as much staying power as any other kind of games. Probably more.

 

[weem]

Maybe it's because I'm reading the books again, but I keep thinking Dune would be a fun one. I would imagine it has been done before in one form or another (I never looked into it), but the idea of playing in that setting is exciting. I guess if wotc does Dark Sun next year I can get some of that want for desert stuff out of my system

 

[delericho]

So, what is everyones opinion in general of RPGs based off of different licensed properties such as the Star Wars RPG, Serenity(I hear opinions tend to get rather strong on this one), The Song of Ice and Fire, The Wheel of Time, etc.

Do you think that they are like novelizations of movies that are just designed mostly to generate some extra popularity for the franchise? And that they are not meant to last too long?

I think it depends very much on the nature of the licensed property, and whether there is "anything else" happening in the universe that is being licensed.

The Star Wars setting makes a good choice for a licensed game because, in large part thanks to the Expanded Universe material, there's a whole lot going on that doesn't have to do with the Skywalker clan.

Similarly, in Star Trek, the Enterprise was only one of a whole fleet of ships. So, setting a game in that universe makes a great deal of sense. (Although, Star Trek has problems in that the 'default campaign' has an in-built heirarchy of command, which may prove problematic in an RPG.)

Serenity should probably be the same, although the universe itself isn't hugely fleshed out. (That may or may not be an advantage, of course.) And the Babylon 5 universe should also work quite well, except that everything that has been presented in that universe outside the core plot of the TV series has been of questionable quality, at best.

By contrast, until the very last episode, Buffy was saddled with the whole "one slayer in every generation" restriction, which limits the utility of the setting in an RPG. Likewise, "Highlander" would be a poor choice, since by the end of the film there is only one Immortal left. "Battlestar Galactica" and "Red Dwarf" also suffer this same problem - the nature of the universe makes the title ship somewhat unique in each case, which is rather too limiting for an RPG.

For the most part, I think I prefer my RPGs built so as to emulate many sources rather than just one. So, rather than a Die Hard or Bad Boys RPG, an action movies supplement/toolbox for "d20 Modern" is a better choice. Rather than Bond or Bourne, better to go with "Spycraft". And so on.

 

[S'mon]

I thought WEG's Star Wars d6 (1st edition) published in 1987 was very good and clearly had legs. It caught the feel of the movies very effectively.

edit: I also bought 1st edition d20 Star Wars. A total mess, piece of dreck. Got rid of it right away and haven't looked at d20 SW since.

Mongoose's d20 (OGL) Conan is pretty good, although d20 is a bit clunky for the genre, there were some effective tweaks to the ruleset and again Ian Sturrock did a good job of capturing the right atmosphere.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG looked great, read very nicely, but was let down and rendered unplayable for me by a Drama Point mechanic that was just too overpowering and wrenched me out of any possibility of immersion. WEG's Force Points worked great for Star Wars, OGL Conan has Fate Points that simulated the stories pretty well. Buffy's "Drama Points" came across far too much as a metagame narrative device, and being available to nearly all NPCs they inevitably dominate play. A 'white hat' PC starts with 20 of them. They give +10 to all rolls - in a d10 system, ie equivalent to +20 all rolls in d20. Listed stats are pretty much irrelevant in the face of that kind of modifier.

 

[S'mon]

Call of Cthulhu has lasted for quite a while, too.

Debatable whether that counts as a licensed property; the original works are Public Domain and AFAIK no money changed hands. The only relevant Trade Mark is Call of Cthulu for RPGs, owned by Chaosium.

This is different from Conan - most of the original works are Public Domain, but AFAIK Conan Enterprises does maintain and license a registered Conan mark. Although without copyright in the underlying texts the strength of that mark is certainly debatable, nominative/descrriptive use defences would potentially allow me to publish my own game using the (Public Domain) Conan universe. I'd probably want to put some TM disclaimers in.

 

[S'mon]

The Star Wars setting makes a good choice for a licensed game because, in large part thanks to the Expanded Universe material, there's a whole lot going on that doesn't have to do with the Skywalker clan.

But d6 Star Wars (1987) predated, and helped create, most of the Expanded Universe. Timothy Zahn drew heavily upon the RPG in writing his novels.

BTW I always thought WEG's interpretation of the Old Republic made far more sense than what Lucas revealed in the Prequel trilogy. A Republic without a military, that bans secession? Aliens everywhere, including the vast majority of the Senate? Hmmm.

 

[Cam Banks]

That's one of the issues I have with Serenity and Battlestar Galactica roleplaying games - I don't think they should even remotely use the same system, which is clearly just MWP's pet in-house system blindly applied to whatever license they might get

Our Cortex system was originally designed for Serenity, actually, in preference to something like d20 Modern (which many people suggested we use at the time.) It was based on the rules for Sovereign Stone, but Jamie adapted those specifically for the game.

BSG uses a modified version of Cortex and, again, it wasn't chosen just because we liked the idea of a house system but because we felt it was a good fit. The rules were modified slightly, just as they have been for Demon Hunters and Supernatural.

It's not that we are limited to using Cortex for licensed properties. It's just that we happen to think the rules work pretty well for all of the ones we've had so far. No blindness at all.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Yeah, Cam, I've heard what you guys say. I think it's patently ridiculous to suggest that the system works for all the shows you've used it for, but it's your decision to make.

 

[Cam Banks]

Yeah, Cam, I've heard what you guys say. I think it's patently ridiculous to suggest that the system works for all the shows you've used it for, but it's your decision to make.

Hey, at least you're hearing us.

Cheers,
Cam