Urban Fantasy general discussion thread

[VelvetViolet]

No, I got it, I just think a genuine difference in metaphysical basis actually matters except in cases where everyone involved is confused about where their esoteric nature comes from, and that doesn't seem to be Nephiliim (they might not be sure of some details of the source, but they know its a common source).

Matters or doesn’t matter?

I don’t think superpowers origins matter unless it’s used as a plot point in adventures, particularly if characters use a universal set of rules to represent their powers regardless of origin.

Vampires and wizards are going to have different social concerns, regardless of the fine details. E.g. Wizards aren’t going to worry about finding victims unless they’re blood wizards.

E.g. Nephilim’s equivalents of vampires and wizards may share the same origin, but they have significantly different capabilities and social concerns.

 

[Thomas Shey]

We just see this differently. Like I said, unless they don't know that they have a common source, I really do think it makes a difference.

But we aren't required to agree.

 

[VelvetViolet]

We just see this differently. Like I said, unless they don't know that they have a common source, I really do think it makes a difference.

But we aren't required to agree.

I’m not necessarily disagreeing. I just don’t understand your point. Do you have practical examples to illustrate that there is a meaningful difference?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Constrast Immortal with the World of Darkness. Immortal prides/tribes all get their abilities from fundamentally the same source, even though the individual groups can approach it very differently and can have a very different look and feel--but ones that disagree about those fundamentals are rare and are generally considered eccentric. They may have different things they focus on, but most of those differences are, from lack of a better term, political.

On the other hand, even in the old World of Darkness, the groups not only don't appear to have the same origin, they don't even agree about the cosmology involved; and they often have significantly different explanations where the others come from (some of which are obviously wrong, some of which could have a kernal of truth). Even subgroups that share some common elements (Gangrel vampires and a couple of the werewolf groups, say, or Ventrue and Sidhe) never consider the other to be just a variation on the same thing; they're interests overlap some and they aren't the same because their understanding of the world is not the same (there are more differences among the core types in what is important to them, than there are within the splats of a type (even those can sometimes range wildly) because that understanding of the world is so radically different.)

 

[VelvetViolet]

Constrast Immortal with the World of Darkness. Immortal prides/tribes all get their abilities from fundamentally the same source, even though the individual groups can approach it very differently and can have a very different look and feel--but ones that disagree about those fundamentals are rare and are generally considered eccentric. They may have different things they focus on, but most of those differences are, from lack of a better term, political.

On the other hand, even in the old World of Darkness, the groups not only don't appear to have the same origin, they don't even agree about the cosmology involved; and they often have significantly different explanations where the others come from (some of which are obviously wrong, some of which could have a kernal of truth). Even subgroups that share some common elements (Gangrel vampires and a couple of the werewolf groups, say, or Ventrue and Sidhe) never consider the other to be just a variation on the same thing; they're interests overlap some and they aren't the same because their understanding of the world is not the same (there are more differences among the core types in what is important to them, than there are within the splats of a type (even those can sometimes range wildly) because that understanding of the world is so radically different.)

And in Chronicles of Darkness you have vampires speculating on wildly different origins even though they all run on the same rules. At certain points different writers try to suggest that the bloodlines really do have separate origins but never commit to anything because toolbox.

The old RequiemNocte fanbook Demonio: La Redencion has every faction positing a different origin for the characters. And provides evidence for all of them.

And the barrel-scraping Deviant game is about letting you have RoboCop and Eleven in the same party. I don’t even pretend to think that makes sense.

I think your analysis is held back by a dearth of reliable data points.

World of Darkness is a horrible example because it’s really a bunch of completely different games written by different teams based loosely on the same task resolution mechanic. Fans got into their heads it could play together despite never being designed to and in practice being terrible at. The games canonically don’t even take place on the same planet, but a set of multiple parallel universes that occasionally crossover.

in any case, I wasn’t comparing different takes on shapeshifters or aristocrats, I was comparing vampires to wizards.

In Nightlife, vampires and sorcerers have no apparent shared origin. In Nephilim, the vampires and wizards do share a common origin. In practice, I don’t see much of a difference in how either approach affects the setting and gameplay by itself. If you change it, then nothing else changes.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And we're back to "I do." I'm not seeing going around and around on it serving any useful purpose for either of us.

 

[VelvetViolet]

Ok then.

It honestly frustrating not to have examples for a more detailed analysis. Urban fantasy is a popular fiction genre, but certain concepts only work in an RPG format. Yet we don’t have many games to work with.

 

[Thomas Shey]

How many is many? DriveThru lists 781 items as "urban fantasy" and "corebooks" (so we're screening out supplements and adventures). Now you can argue whether everything fits there (Shadowrun is there for example, which as noted some people don't count, and the definition of "corebook" can sometimes be interesting; you also have all the WoD and oWoD books listed separately, which bulks it up) but it still seems there's no lack of them. I sometimes have some issues with the core system chosen (I'm not a massive fan of either D&D5 or PbtA, and there's a number of them based on those two), but there's still a large pool.

 

[aramis erak]

How many is many? DriveThru lists 781 items as "urban fantasy" and "corebooks" (so we're screening out supplements and adventures). Now you can argue whether everything fits there (Shadowrun is there for example, which as noted some people don't count, and the definition of "corebook" can sometimes be interesting; you also have all the WoD and oWoD books listed separately, which bulks it up) but it still seems there's no lack of them. I sometimes have some issues with the core system chosen (I'm not a massive fan of either D&D5 or PbtA, and there's a number of them based on those two), but there's still a large pool.

Quite a number of non-cores are listed as cores on drivethru. I don't think DTRPG actually checks.
On the first page under Genre=Miscellaneous and type=Corebooks, I got 2 reps of a hero kids supplement, one adventure, a supplement for Journey (a game I'd not heard of yet), A supplement for Beyond the Wall, 2 sets of solo rules expansions to non-solo games, 3 generic worldbuilding supplements, two 3rd party setting books, and two Savage Worlds setting books (SciFi and Robotech)

 

[Thomas Shey]

I agree; that's why I said the definition of "corebook" getting tagged that way is--interesting.

That said, just looking at the first two pages of Corebook, Modern, Urban Fantasy still shows about 35 that fit the terms reasonably, which is about a third of the entries on those two pages. If that runs true further on, you still have about 200-300 urban fantasy corebooks. As I noted, that includes multiple oWoD and nWoD books, but there's still plenty of independent items to be found among that.