Quote from: droogLicensed settings that aren't worth the trouble? All of them!

Hyperbole? Or do you actually mean it, because...

Conan?

Lankhmar?

Stormbringer?

CoC?

Star Trek?

The various GURPS books? (eg. Horseclans, Humanx, Lensmen, Discworld {okay, GURPS isn't the best fit for discworld, but the setting?}, Witch World, Brin's Uplift, etc.)

How about the d20 books for Black Company, Song of Ice and Fire, or The Wheel of Time (just imagine, something might actually happen with players instead of Jordan pushing the plot. Any plot.).

Final Fantasy?

Babylon 5?


I'm no great fan of using published settings, let alone licensed ones, and some are certainly easier to adapt than others, but it seems to me there's plenty of good RPing to be had in licensed settings.

Conan?
Nope. I like the stories, though.

Lankhmar?
Nope. I love the stories.

Stormbringer?
Nope. I like the stories.

CoC?
Nope. I like the stories in certain moods.

Star Trek?
Definitely not. The series has cheese value only.

The various GURPS books? (eg. Horseclans, Humanx, Lensmen, Discworld {okay, GURPS isn't the best fit for discworld, but the setting?}, Witch World, Brin's Uplift, etc.)
Nope.

How about the d20 books for Black Company, Song of Ice and Fire, or The Wheel of Time (just imagine, something might actually happen with players instead of Jordan pushing the plot. Any plot.).
Nope.

Final Fantasy?
Nope.

Babylon 5?
Nope.


Crikey, I'm even surprised at myself!

Quote from: droog*snip*

Crikey, I'm even surprised at myself!

Okay, not worth it for you.

Would your opinion generalize to not worth it for anyone?

Do I look like an ignoramus? Wait, don't answer that....

QuoteDr Who

Well, we have two Dr. Who spinoffs at the moment - Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures both of which are watchable. (And I just watched Children of Men, so a resistance movement fighting the Cybermen or Dalek invasion might be good.

--

With Serenity, its a western in space right - firefly itself is sorta The Outlaw Josey Whales in space, so theres gotta be mileage in that, right?

You could do Deadwood in space (no law on Miranda - no law at all!), or Tombstone in space (in which there is a war between townies and country folk, with Wyatt Earp executing undesirables) or Young Guns in space etc.

It'll work - you could probably do a Gangs of Lundinium game during the unification war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn3HkYSJM2g&mode=related&search=

Not to mention Alliance Cavalry battling reavers

Quote from: droogDo I look like an ignoramus? Wait, don't answer that....

As far as "looking like an ignoramus" goes, all I can tell from your picture is that "you" look like  a rather short bowler. Was it sniffing too much warpstone, or did you just run out of insurance halfway through the cyberware upgrade operation?

I can't help but think Last of the Mohecians could find a home in Firefly:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpFAl9cyQn0&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7K0rcCnoss&mode=related&search=

All the settings mentioned so far, are bursting with potential (taking taste into account, off course). Anyone who says differently just ain't right in the head :pundit: . The problem is the licensed part.

No,  licensed game is ever gonna capture the magic which cast a spell on the individual reader (Said, reader will have to adapt the setting himself to truly reflect what he thinks the game/setting should be about.When this happens, there's really no trouble at all).

(Sure some would argue that certain game/systems do indeed do just that. To this I say :shrug:, whatever works for you)

It's worth the trouble folks, all you need is a little faith, in your ability to adapt, the setting to what works for you.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Sosthenes... I always thought that Middle Earth should've been tackled in a Pendragon way, not in a D&D way. (I do like MERP, but not exactly for the ME part)

Such wise words ... from a German.  

Will wonders never cease?  :pundit:

Quote from: droogConan?
Nope. I like the stories, though.

You lack in your breast the fire to be a Zingaran noble, steel in hand, with razor-wit and fiery temper, dashing across the kingdoms of Hyboria seeking gold, adventure, women and wine?

You a commie, son?

Quote from: SosthenesI always thought that Middle Earth should've been tackled in a Pendragon way, not in a D&D way. (I do like MERP, but not exactly for the ME part)

I think Decipher's LotR RPG handles the setting much, much better than MERP. I never cottoned to MERP. Some of the sourcebooks were very cool, but the game mechanics leave me cold.

I always wanted to run MERP as a fantasy game set in a world that just happened to look exactly like Middle Earth, only with none of that bothersome ring-stuff.  Don't know how many people would be into it, but it seems to be a good use of the setting from a game standpoint.

Oh, and fourth age would be neat.  The fragment entitled The New Shadow from the History of ME series gives some vague ideas about internal corruption and dissent among those in Gondor, the rise of cults, etc.

Quote from: Erik BoielleWell, we have two Dr. Who spinoffs at the moment - Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures both of which are watchable. (And I just watched Children of Men, so a resistance movement fighting the Cybermen or Dalek invasion might be good.

Wait.. is there actually a sarah jane spinoff on TV right now?? I haven't heard of it... if so, is it any better than Torchwood?  I've been terribly disappointed by that show.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!You lack in your breast the fire to be a Zingaran noble, steel in hand, with razor-wit and fiery temper, dashing across the kingdoms of Hyboria seeking gold, adventure, women and wine?

You might say that. No, I guess it's just that I want to play in a world that isn't about somebody else's writing.

I read Conan for Howard's gutsy writing and his slightly antisocial nuttiness. I read Leiber for his wit and wordplay. I read Le Guin for her philosophy. Without the voice of the writers, their worlds don't have any life for me.


Last time I had this discussion I posted this essay by M. John Harrison: What it might be like to live in Viriconium.

QuoteThe great modern fantasies were written out of religious, philosophical and psychological landscapes. They were sermons. They were metaphors. They were rhetoric. They were books, which means that the one thing they actually weren't was countries with people in them.

The commercial fantasy that has replaced them is often based on a mistaken attempt to literalise someone else's metaphor, or realise someone else's rhetorical imagery. For instance, the moment you begin to ask (or rather to answer) questions like, "Yes, but what did Sauron look like?"?; or, "Just how might an Orc regiment organise itself?"; the moment you concern yourself with the economic geography of pseudo-feudal societies, with the real way to use swords, with the politics of courts, you have diluted the poetic power of Tolkien's images. You have brought them under control. You have tamed, colonised and put your own cultural mark on them.
...............................................................
"What would it be really like to live in the world of...?" is an inappropriate question, a category error. You understand this immediately you ask it of the inscape of, say, Samuel Beckett or Wyndham Lewis. I didn't want it asked (and I certainly didn't want it answered) of Viriconium, so I made that world increasingly shifting and complex. You can not learn its rules. More importantly, Viriconium is never the same place twice. That is because – like Middle-Earth – it is not a place. It is an attempt to animate the bill of goods on offer. Those goods, as in Tolkien or Moorcock, Disney or Kafka, Le Guin or Wolfe, are ideological. "Viriconium"? is a theory about the power-structures culture is designed to hide; an allegory of language, how it can only fail; the statement of a philosophical (not to say ethological) despair. At the same time it is an unashamed postmodern fiction of the heart, out of which all the values we yearn for most have been swept precisely so that we will try to put them back again (and, in that attempt, look at them afresh).

No doubt John will be along to resume our debate!

Re Tolkein: Whatever happened to the Southrons? Those guys were badass.