Urban Fantasy general discussion thread

[aramis erak]

vampires are descended from the biblical Cain (making the Abrahamic faiths demonstrably true),

Not quite. It makes Cain historical, and that Cain was punished by a potent curse, but a sufficiently powerful magus with the right spheres could inflict that curse.
Nothing there endorses the abrahamic faiths. It just says one element in them was based in in-setting truth, without requiring other elements be true.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think this “diversity” has been part and parcel of urban fantasy since its inception, not a “modern” phenomenon.

Unfortunately, no contemporary style urban fantasy tabletop game I know of has tapped into this zeitgeist and been able to get noticeable market share. Shadowrun is post-apocalypse cyberpunk, so not contemporary. The White Wolf games were not designed for mixed play and so suffer from extensive power creep (not to mention a bazillion different editions and associated edition wars, which has soured me on the whole fandom). Nightlife, Everlasting, WitchCraft, Nephilim, Nightbane, etc (basically any game that tried to have mixed play and universal rules at the onset) all died out in obscurity.

For that kind of thing, I would fall back on using a toolbox RPG system with the setting I desired.

For example, I once ran a “D&D“ campaign covering 1Ed- 3Ed, using Fantasy Hero as the system. I did some designing of package deals to simulate various races and classes for each edition, and the players got to mix & match at will. While I offered my assistance, I generally let the players design their own spells, with the caveat that they had to resemble a spell from the source material. Spells had limited uses per day. Etc.

You could do the same with WoD. Pick your favored toolbox system, and use the various WoD settings to give your campaign flavor and set its mechanical boundaries. With everyone using the same baseline system, imbalances between the stuff in the WoD books basically fade away,

 

[aramis erak]

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.

Funny, but VTM 1E said to replace the Werewolves and Sorcerers with their relevant types when their corebooks came out.

WW1E and Mage 1E had some notes on integration with VTM and each other.

Personally I think the implementation in the original Dresden Files and Atomic Robo are better implementation than Fate Core. Haven't played the Accelerated version so not sure how well that plays.

Have played the standalone DF Fate. Haven't played the FAE nor FC versions. I enjoyed it... A lot. But many wouldn't.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think Dresden Files succeed quite well.

They suffer a bit from being stuck off with the Fate contingent, though.

 

[VelvetViolet]

For that kind of thing, I would fall back on using a toolbox RPG system with the setting I desired.

For example, I once ran a “D&D“ campaign covering 1Ed- 3Ed, using Fantasy Hero as the system. I did some designing of package deals to simulate various races and classes for each edition, and the players got to mix & match at will. While I offered my assistance, I generally let the players design their own spells, with the caveat that they had to resemble a spell from the source material. Spells had limited uses per day. Etc.

You could do the same with WoD. Pick your favored toolbox system, and use the various WoD settings to give your campaign flavor and set its mechanical boundaries. With everyone using the same baseline system, imbalances between the stuff in the WoD books basically fade away,

No. I’m making my own settings. Maybe I’ll publish them one day. Altho I’m probably better off writing novels or video games because the tabletop market is definitely not a growth sector.

I kinda hate WoD now after receiving years of abuse from elitist fans and consequently losing interest in the IP itself. I haven’t touched it in a decade and I’m never going to ever again. Altho I did write a Feed conversion to try convincing people to make the jump to that game, because I think it has superior rules compared to VtX when it comes to representing vampires struggling to maintain their human connections and it also gives you complete freedom to customize vampirism in ways that VtX doesn’t. VtX to Feed conversion, part 1