Urban Fantasy general discussion thread

[TwoSix]

Urban Shadows is pretty much already WoD with the serial numbers filed off anyway.

Yea, but the engine is pretty different. I agree, Monster of the Week is great for urban fantasy (haven't tried Urban Shadows), but some groups may want more crunch.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yea, but the engine is pretty different. I agree, Monster of the Week is great for urban fantasy (haven't tried Urban Shadows), but some groups may want more crunch.

For sure. There are a couple of OSR games that work as well - Kevin Crawford's Silent Legions is great for Mythos stuff, and Emmy Allen's Esoteric Enterprises is also excellent. Obviously the Dresden Files RPG is a good choice too, at least for anyone who like the FATE engine.

 

[Fenris-77]

I wrote up a small system agnostic resource on Czernobog recently, if anyone is interested. Just a couple of pages with some history and plot hooks. I'm probably going to use it my current MotW game. You can download it here.

 

[aramis erak]

Superheroes?

There are too many low or unpowered people for the average supers game to handle. I've considered Hero System, since it's the one that does street level the best, But I no longer feel like teaching it to new players, and the prep time is too high in play.

 

[Sithlord]

There are too many low or unpowered people for the average supers game to handle. I've considered Hero System, since it's the one that does street level the best, But I no longer feel like teaching it to new players, and the prep time is too high in play.

I like PL6 mutants and masterminds games for low level games. Especially games without superpowers. It’s a great system in my opinion.

 

[VelvetViolet]

Yea, but the engine is pretty different. I agree, Monster of the Week is great for urban fantasy (haven't tried Urban Shadows), but some groups may want more crunch.

I’d prefer to make my own rules rather than try forcing WoD thru a differently shaped hole. I’d need to rewrite everything anyway, so why make things more difficult for myself?

WoD is basically horrible for anything that isn’t WoD. You don’t need more than one universal system with flavor tweaks to represent splats, but WoD deliberately makes things over-complicated by having every splat run on a different engine. At that point I’m better off using a different game like Buffy, WitchCraft, Everlasting, Nephilim, Invisible War, or even GURPS.

If I was making a crunchy WoD heartbreaker from scratch (but I’m not interested in doing that), then I’d probably use an OGL system like Action! System or Opening the Dark. I used to think crunch was important, but nowadays it’s more of an impediment than anything else.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I definitely enjoy urban fantasy. When I did my Champions:1900 game using HERO 4th, there were definitely fantastic elements...because almost any supers setting will have SOMEONE using magic.

And there’s a lot of fodder out there in fiction from pure urban fantasy to horror to stimulate the ol’ noggin.

 

[Sithlord]

I once had a forgotten realms setting that took place in waterdeep in the year 1995. And I had some badass orc biker gangs. And it was obviously set with technology like 1995 earth

 

[Sithlord]

Isn't there an RPG of the Rivers of London in the making?

And I want this book so bad.

 

[babi_gog]

Have you tried Scion from Onyx Path?
@aramis erak