RPGs based off of Licensed Properties

[maddman75]

For me the show was about the writing and the actors which was all very good. That's stuff that rules don't help with. So, it really depends what is it about the show that made Firefly feel like Firefly to you.

Something like directly giving Plot Points for funny lines would have helped. The combat and wounds systems don't feel like they match up very well. I think its really Cortex, the fiddling with changing dice types makes it feel much mroe complicated than it is.

Of course I feel the same way about any kind of d20 star wars. D6 4 lyfe, baby!

 

[smug]

Well, in practice, there's only two that have lasted a long time - Star Wars and Star Trek. I can't think of any other licensed properties that have really hung in for a long haul.

MERP, as mentioned earlier, lasted a long time and sold a huge number of supplements (which were statted for Rolemaster as well). I don't think that the disappearance of MERP would be laid at the failure of the license, either, so much as it would be blamed on some other bad decisions by ICE, plus some problems with distributors.

 

[Ranger REG]

Of course I feel the same way about any kind of d20 star wars. D6 4 lyfe, baby!

Meh. I already turned my buckets-o-dice into pots for houseplants.

The only d6-based rulesystem I will ever like and declare loud-n-proud is the ICON system from Last Unicorn Games (former publisher of Star Trek RPG post-FASA). Less roll-play (as in less dice to roll in my little hands), more role-play.

 

[Jhaelen]

It really is great. I've been wanting to run an Amber game for quite some time.

I like the system but not the Amber 'universe'.

License-based rpgs often seem to suffer from the same problem that license-based computer games commonly have:
You often suspect they ran out of budget before being able to properly finish development.

Apart from that, I tend to judge a system by it's own merits, not on my opinion about the license. Does Call of Cthulhu count as a license-based rpg? If so, that's one system I like mechanically.

 

[Thondor]

I like the system but not the Amber 'universe'.

I wanted to play a game based of the Amber universe ( A 10 book series by Roger Zelazny, or two 5 book series) long before I found out that there was a game (system) based on it. While there is some incoherence in the Amberverse, that can just make it more fun.

I think the rules system emulates the kind of games the Amber books would suggest beautifully. One of the few places you can have your characters change the course of worlds as easily as killing an orc. (Of Course the One True World is much harder to change, as is the multiverse.)

If I was going to use the system to try and tell a very different kind of story, it would probably be about a group of immortals, demi-gods or something along those lines (or 'people' who act that way).

Hmmm, now I really want to play Amber.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

This is just me thinking aloud here.

I think that one should try and create new ideas of their own, while at the same time tieing it in to the original flavor of the world.

So, take The Wheel of Time for an example. Take an elements of the world, such as the Portal Stones, and that time is cyclical and create an adventure out of it. Say, the PCs use a Portal Stone that takes them to an ancient fortress high in the mountains that is the remnant of a previous turning of the wheel. Then add in your own unique monsters and plot elements, but utilize the core facets of the world.

 

[Thondor]

This is just me thinking aloud here.

I think that one should try and create new ideas of their own, while at the same time tieing it in to the original flavor of the world.

So, take The Wheel of Time for an example. Take an elements of the world, such as the Portal Stones, and that time is cyclical and create an adventure out of it. Say, the PCs use a Portal Stone that takes them to an ancient fortress high in the mountains that is the remnant of a previous turning of the wheel. Then add in your own unique monsters and plot elements, but utilize the core facets of the world.

Hmm, this comment really makes me think of Lightspeed RPG for some reason. Fuzion based space sci-fi game that incorporates a lot of the tropes from Star Trek, Star Wars, and a whole bunch of other 'classic' space tropes all in one galaxy. Its a big galaxy after all . . .

(Of course this isn't a licensed property so . . . moving on)