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Author Topic: Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?  (Read 2623 times)

The Thing
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Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?
« on: May 11, 2021, 03:14:54 AM »
Been replaying mass effect lately and inevitably wondered about a TTRPG.

I think I saw a few videogame  to TTRPG conversions, like one for starcraft that was a cheap cash grab when anything with starcraft on it sold.

It makes me curious, has there ever been a good TTRPG based on a videogame? I honestly can't think of one. There are usually RPGs based on popular series that may last a while, like stargate, farscape, battlestar galactica, etc. But they tend to last about as long as the series is popular.

Sometimes successful or semi successful videogames are based on TTRPGs, like vampire, D&D, cyberpunk, shadorwun, etc, but the reciprocal doesn't seem to apply.

Mass effect seems like a contender for a TTRPG, as do Deus Ex, fallout,(Never played it) and maybe something like rainbow 6. I just don't see them happening tho.

Ratman_tf

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Re: Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?
« Reply #1 on: May 11, 2021, 03:56:36 AM »
I kinda liked the Gears of War board game. It's a lot like Space Hulk/Siege of the Citadel.



I've been meaning to dig it out and try it again, but I can't find my rule book. :/
« Last Edit: May 11, 2021, 03:59:17 AM by Ratman_tf »
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HappyDaze

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Re: Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?
« Reply #2 on: May 11, 2021, 05:29:46 AM »
I've been meaning to dig it out and try it again, but I can't find my rule book. :/
Friend of mine downloads rulebooks for his old boardgames from (I think) BGG all the time. You might want to check there, and ask a bit if you don't find it right away.

The Thing
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Re: Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?
« Reply #3 on: May 11, 2021, 05:53:24 AM »
Guys i was talking about role playing games.

Reckall

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Re: Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?
« Reply #4 on: May 11, 2021, 06:53:52 AM »
Mass effect seems like a contender for a TTRPG, as do Deus Ex, fallout,(Never played it) and maybe something like rainbow 6. I just don't see them happening tho.
You can do all of those with GURPS.

Dragon Age got a TTRPG version. I visited Bioware in Edmonton back in 2010, and I can say that they had A LOT of background material produced for that setting. Unfortunately they also had been bought by EA, who chose a different direction for the franchise. I can't say more without violating a still standing NDA, but let's say that a lot of that material was "frozen" at the time, while EA was deciding what to use and what to change.
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jeff37923

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Re: Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?
« Reply #5 on: May 11, 2021, 07:16:26 AM »
I got a lot of good ideas from the first d20 WoW sourcebook.

Come to think of it, the D&D material that got turned into video games and had some new stuff created just for those games translated back into tabletop D&D nicely. If that counts.
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Ghostmaker

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Re: Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?
« Reply #6 on: May 11, 2021, 08:54:35 AM »
I heard the Diablo 2 d20 conversion wasn't terrible, just... pointless. Like, you could do everything you needed in 3E anyways, you didn't need a dedicated book for it.

Starcraft had an Alternity book for it that basically appeared and vanished again (then again, that was Alternity as a whole anyways. Sheesh).

Ratman_tf

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Re: Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?
« Reply #7 on: May 11, 2021, 09:41:02 AM »
Mass effect seems like a contender for a TTRPG, as do Deus Ex, fallout,(Never played it) and maybe something like rainbow 6. I just don't see them happening tho.
You can do all of those with GURPS.

Yeah, but why would you want to?

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Ratman_tf

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Re: Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?
« Reply #8 on: May 11, 2021, 09:43:14 AM »
Guys i was talking about role playing games.

And all I could come up with is a board game.
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This Guy
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Re: Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?
« Reply #9 on: May 11, 2021, 11:39:33 AM »
published or not

published you have the street fighter RPG which is okay if you don't use the Player's Guide supplement which sucks ass. you also got dragon age RPG which is where Green Ronin got their skeleton for AGE system stuff, and it's okay but god damn did they screw up in hitching their wagon to box sets of 5-levels each like some kind of BECMI clone. Age system is pretty okay though.

used to have a copy of Rune from Atlas Games based on some forgotten hack-and-slasher from the '00s. competitive game, had round-robin play. Never played it myself and it never took off.

unpublished, you got multiple takes on Final Fantasy, all of em fucking suck. bunch of attempts at a Super Mario tabletop game, some are okay some are not. they're free so links as requested.
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This Guy
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Re: Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?
« Reply #10 on: May 11, 2021, 12:11:42 PM »
Mass effect seems like a contender for a TTRPG, as do Deus Ex, fallout,(Never played it) and maybe something like rainbow 6. I just don't see them happening tho.
You can do all of those with GURPS.

Dragon Age got a TTRPG version. I visited Bioware in Edmonton back in 2010, and I can say that they had A LOT of background material produced for that setting. Unfortunately they also had been bought by EA, who chose a different direction for the franchise. I can't say more without violating a still standing NDA, but let's say that a lot of that material was "frozen" at the time, while EA was deciding what to use and what to change.

yeah just reading the first box, and seeing DA2 got barely anything to do with the blight or grey wardens or ferelden, it looked like something went real sideways
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Armchair Gamer

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Re: Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?
« Reply #11 on: May 11, 2021, 12:19:22 PM »
unpublished, you got multiple takes on Final Fantasy, all of em fucking suck.

  I just realized it's been over twenty-five years since I participated in one of the first attempts at a Final Fantasy TTRPG. How far back was it? So far back that I was part of the board on the project the Returners RPG was rebelling against. :)

  I had fun with the PBeMs I ran and participated in as part of that project, but the system we had wasn't anything to write home about. I ran Dragon Warrior/Quest and Final Fantasy based games with the SAGA Rules System back in college.

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Re: Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?
« Reply #12 on: May 11, 2021, 12:44:08 PM »
unpublished, you got multiple takes on Final Fantasy, all of em fucking suck.

  I just realized it's been over twenty-five years since I participated in one of the first attempts at a Final Fantasy TTRPG. How far back was it? So far back that I was part of the board on the project the Returners RPG was rebelling against. :)

  I had fun with the PBeMs I ran and participated in as part of that project, but the system we had wasn't anything to write home about. I ran Dragon Warrior/Quest and Final Fantasy based games with the SAGA Rules System back in college.

you hate to see it but it felt like they were all real heavy on mechanical complexity and the classic job systems that even the final fantasies of the period were moving away from. SAGA seems like a better move

but yeah the thing about a lot of video game->RPG conversions is they're mostly free fangames because the license is pricey, so if you want those kind of things then published IPs aint the way to go
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SHARK

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Re: Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?
« Reply #13 on: May 11, 2021, 01:14:55 PM »
I got a lot of good ideas from the first d20 WoW sourcebook.

Come to think of it, the D&D material that got turned into video games and had some new stuff created just for those games translated back into tabletop D&D nicely. If that counts.

Greetings!

Interesting! Jeff, what are the things that you really liked about the WOW RPG sourcebook? What elements do you think are especially cool for using in a D&D game?

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soundchaser

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Re: Video game to TTRPG conversions, were any good?
« Reply #14 on: May 11, 2021, 01:26:02 PM »
There’s a great Zelda hack out there (unpublished and a dedicated fan). I can’t find it at the moment. It had nifty puzzle, key, and traveling rules that evoked Z nicely.