Urban Fantasy tabletop RPGs - Because the WoD thread is parochial

[FreedomMussel]

Could we just abandon the White Wolf IPs and move on to other urban fantasy games or write retroclones?

For example:

CJ Carrella's WitchCraft - Eden Studios | CJ Carrella's WitchCraft | DriveThruRPG.com

CJ Carrella's WitchCraft - WitchCraftis a game of modern magic and dark secrets. Player characters are the Gifted. Feared for their unique powers,

www.drivethrurpg.com

DriveThruRPG.com - Chaosium - Nephilim - The Largest RPG Download Store!

Your one-stop online shop for new and vintage RPG products from the top publishers, delivered fresh to your desktop in electronic format.

www.drivethrurpg.com

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/276038

Feed - Whistlepunk Games | DriveThruRPG.com

Feed - In every gamer, there's a vampire story clawing to get out. Feed gives you focused, flexible rules to develop your story

www.drivethrurpg.com

Liminal - Modiphius | Liminal | DriveThruRPG.com

Liminal - There’s more to the world than most of us know. Academic wizards and gutter mages, vampires and werewolves, Men in Bla

www.drivethrurpg.com

https://archive.org/details/OpeningTheDarkSRD

Not in the World of Darkness thread, we can't.

Who knows, maybe a urban fantasy thread could work. Plenty of speds in general populating that genre.

 

[Seminal Ointments Lain]

we wuz vampires n shiet

 

[UncleFezziesPantsPuppet]

I want to be in the West Side Vampz crew.

 

[Snekposter]

Does Shadowrun count, or is that more cyberpunk?

 

[FreedomMussel]

Does Shadowrun count, or is that more cyberpunk?

I don’t know.

I suppose Urban Arcana, Shadowrun, Magitech, Nightlife, Liminal, Urban Shadows, Monsterhearts, etc would all count. Maybe Night Shift and Monster of the Week, too.

Urban fantasy can easily crossover with other genres: soap opera, horror, dark fantasy, cyberpunk, space opera, post-apocalypse...

Let’s wait and see whether we need more specific threads.

 

[FreedomMussel]

On another note, I had this idea for a dark superhero urban fantasy game setting.

It takes place in a modern Earth where real paranormal phenomena exists invisible to the world at large. The specific premise is that most abhumans (in the gothic sense) are evil monsters and the PCs are part of a minority of brooding antiheroes who retain their souls and use their dark powers to fight the monsters. It’s a callback to 80s supernatural horror/investigation games like Chill, but with monstrous PC options.

I haven’t found any existing urban fantasy game with this premise, except maybe Night Shift, though my search skill may be weak.

 

[BlazikenLover]

Oh hell yes, this thread will be useful to me since I want to run such a game:
The idea I had was a modern setting with some of the d&d races and either no magic or low magic, perhaps even replace magic with psionics or use "weird science" (weapons and gadgets made by mad scientists which may as well be magic).
For the premise I was planning that everything is rather mundane but recently rumors about strange and paranormal phenomena (posessions, abductions, a civilization of mutants deep in the sewers, aliens, men in black) have been spreading.
Lastly, for the system I am considering GURPS or savage worlds, leaning more towards the former.

 

[Seminal Ointments Lain]

The problem of Urban Fantasy is the same problem with any genre

It's an arbitrary, uncreative limitation

I can't think outside the box so let's put everything inside boxes

And with Urban Faggotry your options are:

1) discount shadowrun
2) webcomic-tier John Dies At The End mishmash garbage
3) Superheroes
4) ironic nigger-based meme game

I guess you could also do a (albeit invariably corrupted by memes) 80's knockoff game in the style of the Big Trouble in Little China or low budget b-movies that start in a fantasy land but 90% of the runtime is just city streets at night as a (tragically) ironic ode to oldschool renegade filmmaking because RedLetterMedia mentioned it once or twice.

 

[FreedomMussel]

Oh hell yes, this thread will be useful to me since I want to run such a game:
The idea I had was a modern setting with some of the d&d races and either no magic or low magic, perhaps even replace magic with psionics or use "weird science" (weapons and gadgets made by mad scientists which may as well be magic).
For the premise I was planning that everything is rather mundane but recently rumors about strange and paranormal phenomena (posessions, abductions, a civilization of mutants deep in the sewers, aliens, men in black) have been spreading.
Lastly, for the system I am considering GURPS or savage worlds, leaning more towards the former.

You may be interested in reading d20 Modern for ideas, as well as its predecessor Alternity. It has campaign settings including Urban Arcana, Shadowchasers, Agents of Psi, and Dark•Matter plus whatever was published in supplements and Polyhedron magazine. Other TSR products that might be relevant include the Magitech campaign setting from the 90s Amazing Engine game. Although GURPS might already have a supplement about handling all kinds of urban fantasy.

Urban Arcana has the magical hidden from most muggles by a constant mental filter effect, whereas Magitech is a fullblown alternate history where magic is integrated into modern life. The former seems to be what you’re looking for. Dark•Matter has more of an X-Files vibe, so you might prefer that or a mixture.

The problem of Urban Fantasy is the same problem with any genre

It's an arbitrary, uncreative limitation

I can't think outside the box so let's put everything inside boxes

And with Urban Faggotry your options are:

1) discount shadowrun
2) webcomic-tier John Dies At The End mishmash garbage
3) Superheroes
4) ironic nigger-based meme game

I guess you could also do a (albeit invariably corrupted by memes) 80's knockoff game in the style of the Big Trouble in Little China or low budget b-movies that start in a fantasy land but 90% of the runtime is just city streets at night as a (tragically) ironic ode to oldschool renegade filmmaking because RedLetterMedia mentioned it once or twice.

Urban fantasy is an extremely broad brush. It’s extremely common in prose publishing, for example.

 

[FreedomMussel]

So I wanted to do a brief review of some mechanics I liked. This post will be vampire-related.

In the game Feed, vampires are treated somewhat differently than they are in other games. Not unlike GURPS Blood Types, the rules provide guidelines for groups to create their own vampire strains to replicate existing works of vampire fiction or to create wholly new concepts never seen before. It's reminiscent of the 1990 RPG Nightlife in that respect, and I think it would be easy to replicate Nightlife's setting in the Feed rules.

But it's probably the game's humanity mechanic that makes it stand out from its conceptual predecessors. Rather than having a statistic measuring the character's abstract "humanity" a la cyberpunk games and the like, vampire characters instead have this represented by a ratio of human traits and vampiric traits. Rather than attributes, skills, perks/flaws, etc like in other games, characters in Feed always have 16 character traits evenly divided among the categories of personal, public, physical, and spiritual. A vampire starts off with one human trait replaced by a vampiric trait, and replace more traits as they alienate their human connections. This makes the mechanic more like a lightside/darkside mechanic than a cyberpunk-esque humanity mechanic. Indeed, the game also includes provisions for ancient less human vampires to lose vampiric traits in favor of gaining human traits.

I suppose the basic outline of the mechanic could also be adapted to representing other liminal creatures, such as werewolves, fairies, or whatever. Although in that case more tweaks would probably be necessary to prevent them from simply being a variation on vampires. (Although Nightlife-style werewolves fit perfectly with the vampire rules as is.)

What do you think?

 

[FreedomMussel]

Here's an idea I had:

If I was writing a horror or urban fantasy setting with monsters, then something I’d want to do would be to write that vampires, werewolves, wizards, etc come in countless different varieties a la Dresden Files and American Vampire. Vampirism strains, lycanthropy strains, magical traditions, etc.

If you're playing monster hunters, then it keeps the monsters unpredictable. PCs would have to do research upon encountering a new strain to learn its weaknesses.

If you're playing monsters, then it gives players options to create whatever special snowflake they want. Your PC can be the vampire nekomata of Nabéshima or a time-traveling homunculus created by the Knights Templar. The game Actual Fucking Monsters does this and I think it's interesting.

 

[Jason Wynn]

You could use GURPS to make an urban fantasy game

Mutants and Masterminds can easily be retooled this way as well

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

KULT! It's a game with some similarities to WoD and curiously enough it was released the same year: 1991.

Cut and paste from wikipedia:

The default backdrop of Kult is modern-day real-life larger cities; players taking the roles of contemporary multi-genre protagonists, such as private investigators and femme fatales, vigilantes and drug dealers, artists and journalists, or secret agents and mad scientists.[3] In the game, however, all this and the entire world we see, is an "illusion" held together by a monotheistic belief which is unravelling to reveal a darker backdrop where nightmarish monsters lurk, called "reality" in the game. This illusion was created by the Demiurge to hold humanity prisoner and to prevent mankind from regaining the divinity it once had. In the absence of this Demiurge, sinister forces plot to keep us from realizing the truth, or even to plunge the world into an apocalyptic war to restore humanity's ignorance and blind faith in the divine order.[4]

The latest release, Kult: Divinity Lost, is from 2018 and available in english and other languages. Looking at wikipedia it won some awards one of which was for writing, so that's neat.

The original had a huge impact in Sweden and led to a moral panic calling for a ban of P&P RPGs after it was cited as the reason why a dude killed himself (after his character died in the game and his mind was warped by the occult). I think the guy was playing The Black Madonna module at the time, that one is a classic.



Here's an older teaser trailer for the 2018 edition, it just shows off artwork and teases the date. There's a lot of the occult and horror in the game, along with drugs and whatever fucked up shit you want to put into it to amp up a scenario. I haven't played it in 20 years but from what I remember part of the thing is that it is not fun to be aware of the real world and know what is really going on around you.

 

[FreedomMussel]

You could use GURPS to make an urban fantasy game

Mutants and Masterminds can easily be retooled this way as well

Technically, you can jury-rig anything to play urban fantasy. I prefer books specifically tailored for the genre in order to save time and effort. YMMV.

Does GURPS have any worldbooks or guides specifically on urban fantasy or is this one of those times you have to buy a dozen books and stitch something together?

M&M uses d20 rules and there’s already several urban fantasy settings for that already like Urban Arcana and Night Shift.

KULT! It's a game with some similarities to WoD and curiously enough it was released the same year: 1991.

Cut and paste from wikipedia:


The latest release, Kult: Divinity Lost, is from 2018 and available in english and other languages. Looking at wikipedia it won some awards one of which was for writing, so that's neat.

The original had a huge impact in Sweden and led to a moral panic calling for a ban of P&P RPGs after it was cited as the reason why a dude killed himself (after his character died in the game and his mind was warped by the occult). I think the guy was playing The Black Madonna module at the time, that one is a classic.
View attachment 2186655


Here's an older teaser trailer for the 2018 edition, it just shows off artwork and teases the date. There's a lot of the occult and horror in the game, along with drugs and whatever fucked up shit you want to put into it to amp up a scenario. I haven't played it in 20 years but from what I remember part of the thing is that it is not fun to be aware of the real world and know what is really going on around you.

You might be interested to hear that Monte Cook produced The Strange, Invisible Sun, and Godforsaken. Those are all urban fantasy at least some of the time, and all have some kind of extreme surreal element to them.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

There's a Monster Hunter International supplement for Savage Worlds, in case you ever wanted to get paid to shoot critters in the face.

The only problem I've ever had with MHI's setting is the assumption that the PUFF (the Perpetual Unearthly Forces Fund) wouldn't get raided by Congressional retards. Politicians hate seeing money slide out of their greasy fingertips.

One amusing suggestion I've seen regarding the setting: the feds actively suppress knowledge and awareness of the supernatural to try and keep belief as low as possible, on the theory that it prevents more powerful and dangerous supernatural threats from arising. But what if that wasn't true? What if the fall and rise of supernatural activity is entirely unrelated -- kind of like Shadowrun and the mana cycle? Talk about horrific tragedy; many of the feds in the Monster Control Bureau (MCB) have had to do some awful things, up to and including murdering innocent witnesses to a supernatural event or creature. The revelation that it was all for nothing would most certainly wreck the Bureau.

 

[LurkNoMore]

There's a Monster Hunter International supplement for Savage Worlds, in case you ever wanted to get paid to shoot critters in the face.

The only problem I've ever had with MHI's setting is the assumption that the PUFF (the Perpetual Unearthly Forces Fund) wouldn't get raided by Congressional retards. Politicians hate seeing money slide out of their greasy fingertips.

One amusing suggestion I've seen regarding the setting: the feds actively suppress knowledge and awareness of the supernatural to try and keep belief as low as possible, on the theory that it prevents more powerful and dangerous supernatural threats from arising. But what if that wasn't true? What if the fall and rise of supernatural activity is entirely unrelated -- kind of like Shadowrun and the mana cycle? Talk about horrific tragedy; many of the feds in the Monster Control Bureau (MCB) have had to do some awful things, up to and including murdering innocent witnesses to a supernatural event or creature. The revelation that it was all for nothing would most certainly wreck the Bureau.

Problem I always had with it was how hardly anyone knows of the supernatural. Fucking werewolf office attacks and hardly anyone knows about it? Or the occasional zombie outbreak?

Otherwise cool ass setting/story.

 

[FreedomMussel]

Problem I always had with it was how hardly anyone knows of the supernatural. Fucking werewolf office attacks and hardly anyone knows about it? Or the occasional zombie outbreak?

Otherwise cool ass setting/story.

Yeah, the Shadowchasers and Urban Arcana settings had “Shadow” conceal the paranormal from most muggles’s perceptions. They could technically see monsters and stuff, but interpreted it as something mundane. Sometimes the examples were pretty extreme (e.g. perceiving a dragon attack as a gas explosion).

That’s the easiest explanation, as it doesn’t require you to worry about the logistics of concealing information from the public. Urban fantasy genre has devised a bunch of other explanations, tho.

 

[FreedomMussel]

A setting conceit I think would be interesting to explore would be to have a modern Earth with links to various otherworlds, such as a medieval world, a virtual reality world, an alien nightmare realm, etc. These worlds could serve as origins for various paranormal creatures that visit Earth, which cuts down on needing to integrate the paranormal into Earth history and dealing with population dynamics and whatnot.

For example, an otherworld named "Uberwald" or "Sylvania" or something could serve as the homeworld of various kinds of vampires, lycanthropes, and witches that emigrate to Earth.

 

[FreedomMussel]

Since this thread seems to be a ghost town, I’m going to drop some complaining in the hope of attracting attention to occupy my time.

I wish there were sizable communities for urban fantasy games other than Shadowrun or World of Darkness. This thread is a ghost town since nobody seems interested is just discussing urban fantasy and what you can do with the genre. No, discussion always centers around decades old lore and scandals that writers were involved in, and never anything so banal as actual gameplay or game design.

It’s aggravating. Urban fantasy has basically infinite potential due to its fictional nature.

Take werewolves, for example. In media they’re typically pretty boring, whereas vampires get laundry lists of superpowers because of Bram Stoker and Anne Rice. There’s no reason why you couldn’t give werewolves laundry lists of superpowers to make them cooler and otherwise experiment with the concept.

But you know what gets dozens of books over decades, an enduring community, and a video game spin-off? An IP about werewolf eco-terrorists. Of all the things you could do, you limit yourself to that?

I wouldn’t mind if there were other werewolf-themed games, but there aren’t.

Which is very strange by itself, considering that “shifters” is a very popular subgenre in prose publishing. But I don’t pretend that the tabletop market makes much sense.

It’s very frustrating. Does anybody else feel this way?

 

[Snekposter]

I certainly do, although I'd argue that powers are a hard thing to write about given that they are the physical counterpart to a vampire's more intellectual bit. I mean, they're both humans-turned-monsters, and they're both mirror images of human nature. Vampires are the more intellectual side, cunning and ambition given physical power, and werewolves are the opposite, rage and fury given cunning and intellect. I suppose you could have them call on nature, but.. that's also a vampire thing, but they also have either resistance or straight-up immunity to attacks that aren't from silvered weapons, which combined with their absurd physicality isn't exactly a big issue. They've always been that way. I mean, you could tie their powers into passion and animality like the Werewolf games did but uh... you don't want to talk about those.