# The urban fantasy market seems awfully stagnant



## VelvetViolet (Jun 21, 2019)

Of the urban fantasy games that have come out in the last three decades or so, the one that seems to dominate the market is _World of Darkness_. Well, that and _Shadowrun_. I could be wrong, that's the impression I get. What sets _World of Darkness _apart from something like _Dungeons & Dragons_, _All Flesh Must be Eaten_, _Urban Shadows_, _Monsterhearts_, or _Feed _is that it isn't a "generic" game which supports a variety of settings. It has a three decade old convoluted comic-book style continuity baked in. There are two other continuities, _Chronicles of Darkness_ and _Monte Cook's World of Darkness_, but those are also baked into their own set of rules and seem to inexplicably court edition wars.

_World of Darkness_ had a number of competitors like _Nightlife_, _C.J. Carella's WitchCraft_, _The Everlasting_, _Nephilim_, _Immortal: The Invisible War_ and so forth. Those are all out of print now, maybe available at e-retail if the publisher cared to upload them years ago. All of them had their own takes on the paranormal, their own settings and creative ideas. _World of Darkness_ doesn't reflect any of that variety of thought and doesn't support playing outside of its idiosyncratic sandbox, all three or so of them.

The less said about the mechanics the better. Especially the superpowers. It you want my opinion at its most succinct, then I believe a mechanic like _Godbound_'s words is vastly superior to the mess that is _World_/_Chronicles of Darkness_.

I find all that rather grating. I don't like _World_/_Chronicles of Darkness _because I don't like being restricted to play in someone else's arbitrarily narrow sandbox. I don't like playing a game that is firmly stuck in an early 90s zeitgeist when the urban fantasy genre is so much more diverse than that and roleplaying games have expanded so far in that time. I like having loads of options, like how _Dungeons & Dragons_ has a bazillion campaign settings both official and third-party. I don't a have a problem with extensive lore in the abstract sense, but the _World__ of Darkness_ fandom seems more interested in discussing the lore than actually playing the game or creating homebrew settings. The vitriolic edition wars pretty much destroyed any interest I had years ago and sent me running into the arms of _Dungeons & Dragons_.

Maybe it would make sense to use a concrete example. Take _Werewolf_. In horror movies and paranormal fiction at large, werewolves have typically been pigeonholed as a viral curse with uncommon exceptions. In either _of Darkness_ setting, the standard character is a lycanthrope. Lycanthropy is hereditary and tied to a deity like Gaia or Father Wolf. There aren't other options, except maybe in a obscure sourcebook for a specific edition like _Hengeyokai _or _Skinchangers_. You definitely can't play anything like the lunars from the sister game _Exalted_. (I'm not touching the tribes with a ten-foot pole. Suffice to say, White Wolf/Onyx Path/whoever has never been able to write believable political parties.)

Meanwhile: _Nephilim _had selenim (emotion-eating shapeshifting immortal necromancers), _WitchCraft _had ferals (who could be hereditary, cursed, possessed, etc and flowed like water rather than assuming fixed forms), _The Everlasting_ had manitou (spiritual warriors who bound themselves to spirits, including plant or mineral) and wer (horror movie-style viral werewolves), and _Dresden Files_ had five or so different kinds of "werewolves" as a starting point. Recent Netflix original series _The Order_ has werewolves as people bonded with magical sentient wolf pelts passed down through an order.


There simply doesn't seem be any game approximating _Dungeons & Dragons_'s diversity for the urban fantasy genre, or at least none that have achieved anywhere near as much success as _World__ of Darkness_. Somebody once tried to make a retroclone under the OGL called _Opening the Dark_, but that never made any impression. _Urban Shadows_, _Monsterhearts_ and _Feed _were the most interesting to me because they devised unique mechanics to better support their intended themes. _Urban Shadows_ focused on politics, _Monsterhearts _focused on monsters as metaphor, and _Feed _focused on humanity versus vampirism. In my opinion this was implemented in a superior manner to _World__ of Darkness_.

So I find myself stuck between a rock a hard place. _World_/_Chronicles of Darkness_ dominates the market, but the awful rules, restrictive setting and toxic community absolutely repulses me. The indie games are a breath of fresh air but remain stuck in obscurity.

I don't know what to do, so I come here to ask for advice.


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## Aldarc (Jun 21, 2019)

Dresden Files also has been updated several years ago as Dresden Files Accelerated, using Fate Accelerated but PbtA-like playbooks called "Mantles". 

There is also Modern AGE by Green Ronin, which uses a modified version of the AGE system from their other games (e.g., Dragon Age, Titansgrave, Fantasy Age, Blue Rose, etc.), but set in a modern setting. I believe that fantasy add-ons are also available for it. 

There is also The Strange by Monte Cook Games, which focuses on agents dealing with quasi-dimensional realms: some sci-fi, some fantasy, some fictional worlds come to life, etc. 

Savage Worlds I believe also has a number of urban fantasy settings.


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## Nagol (Jun 21, 2019)

_Esoterrorists_ is one I don't see mentioned.  Others that riff off modern horror include modern age Cthulhu like _Delta Green_ or _The Laundry_.

I typically used a generic system (Hero if it matters which one) when I've wanted to run modern day fantasy.  That gave me complete control to design the world to explore the themes, genres, and tropes while allowing the players access to many forms of inspiration for character formation.  

Currently, I running a heavily setting-modified _Conspiracy-X_ game with elements added from other Unisystem games like AFMBE and _Witchcraft_.  It seemed to fit well with what I wanted this time.


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## GMMichael (Jun 21, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> I don't like playing a game that is firmly stuck in an early 90s zeitgeist . . .
> 
> So I find myself stuck between a rock a hard place. _World_/_Chronicles of Darkness_ dominates the market, but the awful rules, restrictive setting and toxic community absolutely repulses me. The indie games are a breath of fresh air but remain stuck in obscurity.
> 
> I don't know what to do, so I come here to ask for advice.



I can't say that I would complain about a '90s anything.  Heck, the closely-related '80s zeitgeist is working nicely for Stranger Things...but anyway.

You might scare away other communities by referring to the WoD community as "toxic," but I'm sure you're just making a point.  

An indie game is no longer stuck in obscurity once you pick it up, so that's not a problem.  I do, however, see a problem in getting _other people_ to accept the same indie game that you have accepted.  However, an insurmountable problem (for you personally) is raising your preferred indie game to the status of WoD or D&D . . . unless you're on the Hasbro board of directors or your middle name is "The Rock."  Then you could probably make your game popular.

The best I can do is offer to help you devise some unique mechanics for Modos RPG (handy link in signature).  It's setting-agnostic, so you can step out of the '90s, and the blueprint leaves some good space for werewolf varieties, god-words, etc.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 21, 2019)

Another vote for a toolkit RPG system.  Cherrypick the elements you like from other games, ditch the rest.


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## Tony Vargas (Jun 21, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> _World of Darkness_ doesn't reflect any of that variety of thought and doesn't support playing outside of its idiosyncratic sandbox, all three or so of them.



It peaked at 5 or 6, in the oWoD as I recall.

And one of them, Mage, you could take careening off into almost any genre.  Virtual Adepts & Akashic Brothers vs Iteration X & Syndicate:  Cyberpunk.  Void Engineers vs Nephandi:  Space Opera.  NWO vs Sons of Ether:  James Bond.  Traditions + Technocracy vs Marauders: superheroes.  Marauders vs Nephandi: Tokusatsu.  Syndicate vs Euthanotos: Corporate Espionage.  NWO vs Al-I Batini: 24.  Akashic Brothers vs Eutanotoi: Kung-fu movies.  Cult of X vs NWO: surrealism. 



> I don't like playing a game that is firmly stuck in an early 90s zeitgeist when the urban fantasy genre is so much more diverse than that and roleplaying games have expanded so far in that time.



 RPGs are still dominated by D&D - they haven't expanded all that much since the mid-80s. ;(   




> The vitriolic edition wars pretty much destroyed any interest I had years ago and sent me running into the arms of _Dungeons & Dragons_.



D&D had it's own vitriolic edition wars for about 6 years, there.



> There simply doesn't seem be any game approximating _Dungeons & Dragons_'s diversity for the urban fantasy genre, or at least none that have achieved anywhere near as much success as _World__ of Darkness_.



D&D's diversity ranges all the way from crawling around in dungeons killing monsters and taking their stuff, to wandering around the wilderness killing monsters and taking their stuff, all the way to, at it's most sophisticated, getting settled in a city or noble court, killing people, and taking their stuff.

I'm amazed with a bar that low, anything can fail to at least trip over it. 




> _World_/_Chronicles of Darkness_ dominates the market, but the awful rules, restrictive setting and toxic community absolutely repulses me. The indie games are a breath of fresh air but remain stuck in obscurity.



So, exactly like D&D then.  ;P  

Actually, WoD/Storyteller and D&D/d20 are very similar stories: both were '1st' at something and have (or have had) market and/or head-space dominance in their niche (with D&D's niche being the Megaladon in the wading pool of the whole hobby), both have thoroughly embraced a philosophy of sticking to bad rules because they, through some sort of alchemy or reverse psychology or Nietzschean Selection, create excellent GMs who run great games.  



> I don't know what to do, so I come here to ask for advice.



 Indie games may be stuck in obscurity, but that doesn't stop a talented, determined GM from gathering a group together and running one for as long as he can.  FATE would be a great place to start for what you're looking for, IMHO. Night's Dark Agents also sounds like it could fit the bill quite well.  I'm not sure which PbtA game would be best, but the system seems like it could be a step up.

Good luck.


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## VelvetViolet (Jun 22, 2019)

Tony Vargas said:


> It peaked at 5 or 6, in the oWoD as I recall.
> 
> And one of them, Mage, you could take careening off into almost any genre.  Virtual Adepts & Akashic Brothers vs Iteration X & Syndicate:  Cyberpunk.  Void Engineers vs Nephandi:  Space Opera.  NWO vs Sons of Ether:  James Bond.  Traditions + Technocracy vs Marauders: superheroes.  Marauders vs Nephandi: Tokusatsu.  Syndicate vs Euthanotos: Corporate Espionage.  NWO vs Al-I Batini: 24.  Akashic Brothers vs Eutanotoi: Kung-fu movies.  Cult of X vs NWO: surrealism.
> 
> ...






Your description of Mage perfectly encapsulates one of the problems I have. When I think about wizards, I think Harry Potter, Merlin, Dresden Files, Fullmetal Alchemist, The Magicians, The Order, and Charmed... not whatever Mage is trying to be. It’s simply too ridiculous and makes more sense as a Rifts setting. Plus, the radical leftism baked into the books makes it read as extremely obnoxious.

I feel like I’m better off writing my own urban fantasy novels and then trying to secure an RPG deal if gets popular enough.


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## Tony Vargas (Jun 22, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> Your description of Mage perfectly encapsulates one of the problems I have. When I think about wizards, I think Harry Potter, Merlin, Dresden Files, Fullmetal Alchemist, The Magicians, The Order, and Charmed... ...



 Strictly Order Of Hermes, then.  Arbitrarily narrow, but doable - an Horizon Realm or just some little college town the Ascension War doesn't quite reach, with Bygones instead of other supernaturals.


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## Umbran (Jun 22, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> Your description of Mage perfectly encapsulates one of the problems I have. When I think about wizards, I think Harry Potter, Merlin, Dresden Files, Fullmetal Alchemist, The Magicians, The Order, and Charmed... not whatever Mage is trying to be.




Okay, there's a fundamental logical issue here.

You spend a long post complaining about how WoD is fixed in one particular version of the supernatural, and then when someone points out that one corner of it isn't like that... that it can manage many different kinds of supernatural, you say it doesn't fit your fairly narrow image of what these supernatural people should be!

Pick a complaint and stick with it, I say.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 22, 2019)

I would love to run a game based on something like _Imajica_, _Weaveworld_, _Great & Secret Show_, _Neverwhere_, Koontz’s _Odd Thomas_ books or any number of modern fantasy/horror works.  But few dedicated urban fantasy RPGs would support most of those settings. 

That doesn’t even get into my own personal ideas...

Hence my preference for using a toolbox system.


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## Sword of Spirit (Jun 22, 2019)

I understand the OP's point. I'm surprised I haven't seen it made before. Sure, you can take bits and pieces of WoD (or a lot of things) and create a setting you want out of it. But, by default it presents one highly themed version of a modern fantasy world that won't support many (I'd say maybe even *most* if you don't want to have to squint to make it look right) of the sorts of modern fantasy stories you might want to play based on common takes on supernatural lore. A setting that was both flavorful (not just DIY with a universal system) and supportive of multiple takes (focusing on the most common ones) on supernatural elements, would be a great addition to the offerings.

I'm actually working on that very thing. What is it, Saturday now? Let's see...check back with me in about...2035.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 22, 2019)

Sure...but if the game strives to be all things to all people, you get the kind of RPG that- to some people- suffers from bloat and possibly even imbalances.  See D&D.


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## Fenris-77 (Jun 22, 2019)

Sword of Spirit said:


> I understand the OP's point. I'm surprised I haven't seen it made before. Sure, you can take bits and pieces of WoD (or a lot of things) and create a setting you want out of it. But, by default it presents one highly themed version of a modern fantasy world that won't support many (I'd say maybe even *most* if you don't want to have to squint to make it look right) of the sorts of modern fantasy stories you might want to play based on common takes on supernatural lore. A setting that was both flavorful (not just DIY with a universal system) and supportive of multiple takes (focusing on the most common ones) on supernatural elements, would be a great addition to the offerings.
> 
> I'm actually working on that very thing. What is it, Saturday now? Let's see...check back with me in about...2035.



I think it would be really difficult to write a game that supported even most of the current takes on urban fantasy. Reconciling, for example, the approach taken by the show _Supernatural_, with the _Dresden Files_, with Lev Grossman's _Magicians_ with, say, the more dreamlike urban fantasy of Charles De Lint, seems an insurmountable task. Some of the broad strokes fit together, but the details? Not so much.

I think your comments on setting really hit the mark too. Having a rich sandbox to play in is great, and we don't all have the time and/or inclination to flesh out our own world. Plus the details of a generic system are often going to be just far enough wide of the mark to feel off.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jun 22, 2019)

I love the lore and the factions of WoD but not the rules, nor when the authors want to teach me about History but it is only annoying propaganda.

About rules I use my own mash-up, with some little changes of the d20 system, adding more abilities scores: astuteness (social manipulation, creativity to improvise), courage (bravery, but also resistance to mental stress), grace(fate/karma/luck) and technique (it is not like Destrexe but for pre-learnt actions (playing music, dance, maneuvers of martial arts), or actions what need more time, like crafting or art). And I use a fiction world, where Spanish empire can kick-ass Ottoman pirates, and mason lodges are controlled by vampire clans to conspire against Church and their crusader undead-slayers, but nobody is going to complain about that.  

The urban fantasy set in real world, or a world like us, has a weak point, I call it Superman17 effect. In the comic #17 Superman stopped the second world capturing Hitler and sending him to the ONU to be judged. I mean too powerful characters can't be hidden but they alter the History. Really my setting is a mixture of noir-punk version of Ravenloft with the factions of WoD, some ideas from Kult: lost divinity and the nations from 7th Sea because using known things by the players is easier to create a lot of new names.


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## VelvetViolet (Jun 22, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Okay, there's a fundamental logical issue here.
> 
> You spend a long post complaining about how WoD is fixed in one particular version of the supernatural, and then when someone points out that one corner of it isn't like that... that it can manage many different kinds of supernatural, you say it doesn't fit your fairly narrow image of what these supernatural people should be!
> 
> Pick a complaint and stick with it, I say.






You’re right. That’s why I mentioned fiction where there are multiple kinds of magic. Charmed (the reboot) featured both “witchcraft” and “Yoruban” magic. The Magicians has an entire multiverse with many different magic systems. Buffy has technopaganism. The Everlasting has a bunch of magical traditions.

Mage goes off the rails by making the main conflict of the setting (either one) into what one critic described as a “cosmic wikipedia edit war.” The tone is firmly in the realm of what many describe as “gonzo” taken to the most extreme. Heck, the 2e rulebook opens with a space battle in the orbit of Saturn. Which isn’t itself a bad thing, but it’s the only choice I’m given. What if I don’t want the setting to extend past Earth? Or past one city? Why play Mage at that point? It’s not made for me.

(When 3e tried to be more down-to-earth, the lead developer got hundreds of death threats in his email. He was literally afraid to open his inbox for a while. So that’s why I’m against World of Darkness on the basis of a “toxic community.”)

But I digress. You’re right about me arbitrarily discounting a setting. I failed to articulate myself and for that I apologize. I don’t like Mage because I only have a choice between “consensus reality” and “supernal realms.” If the M20 book was anything to go by, the “traditions” are lunatic radicals that hate modern civilization and the “technocracy” are lunatics that want to literally destroy the human spirit like a Saturday morning cartoon villain. The Awakening has a more obvious “not so different” theme for its heroes/villains, but is essentially the same conflict with different window dressing. It’s not as flexible as it claims to be. There is so much baggage in terms of setting and authorial intent. A toolkit it is not.

If I want something different, then I have to play a different game like Warlock or Dresden Files. Which have entirely different baggage. I haven’t found anything I liked consistently. There’s no game I could find with multiple different campaign settings that try to do different things like, say, All Flesh Must Be Eaten or Feed. Something like Urban Shadows is great for monster mash politics, but lacks campaign settings. Those are all on the GM.

World of Darkness has a stranglehold on the market. The creativity of other potential settings has no room to shine. Without competition, the genre stagnates.


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## Sword of Spirit (Jun 22, 2019)

Some additional thoughts on how I see the issues and what I'm trying to do to create a desirable outcome. 

No system is truly "universal," because some settings would work better in other systems; sometimes they even need a unique system to really do what they do. I think some universal settings work better than others. While I'm not very familiar with the PbtA system, from the way people talk it does well supporting different settings, and is customized for each one. I think that's a commonality of the systems that work well for different settings--a reasonable degree of customization for that setting. Still, even there you aren't going to be able to support every setting and playstyle. A highly narrativist focused system won't work with some settings, just like a highly simulationist setting won't work well with others.

It is also quite a fine line to be able to encompass most of the common ideas people have about a genre/setting, while still having a richly distinct feel. Some of what I'm working on to attempt to create that involves:

A system that is internally flexible to support different playstyles. Specific meta-options can be chosen, either/or overall for a campaign, for an adventure, or for specific characters, skills, and powers. My system is on the light side, so these aren't adding a bunch of crunch. And example might be character creation and advancement. There is no default that says characters start weak. If you want to play archmagi from the get-go, you can. You could also have different levels of power between characters. This is all decided as a group. Also the primary or suggested way of handling character advancement is to do whatever makes sense. Do you want characters to get better between one story and the next? Then they do, by whatever amount you want them to. If not, they don't. My system isn't designed to function as a game. However, since I realize there might be people who really like my system overall, but are uncomfortable with that level of free-form character design, I'll provide some sort of point-buy system customized to work with the sorts of assumptions that people who want point buy want, while staying faithful to the setting I'm focusing on.

A setting that seeks to incorporate the general commonalities amongst lore (not the specifics). You can't easily mimic any particular franchise with these rules, because that isn't the point. What you _can_ do is choose whether vampires have complex social structures or not (and even vary it in different parts of the world). There would be multiple examples of how you can do different things, some of which are compatible, and others of which are mutually exclusive. Brief examples are given for each element, and then at least two examples of how you could put those elements together for an overall world setting. Magi will not be limited with spell points nor a list of known spells. They will have something more akin to Mage: the Ascension, although it will be possible to exhaust oneself in magic, just like in physical exertion. Unlike the highly unique setting of Mage, with mages that feel totally different from common lore about mages, and with things like Paradox, this system will support more traditional feeling magi, including culturally distinct varieties as well as a common magical theme for them to interact under. You can't play everything with that, but if someone coming in with general fantasy experience wants to play a wizard in a modern fantasy setting, my setting should support the iconic ideas they most likely have.

Flavor distinctions that avoid violating common lore, and are as broadly applicable as reasonable, while still allowing for the flexibility I've mentioned. For instance, vampires will be undead. They have literally (even if only momentarily) died, and their bodies are animated by something different than a lifeforce. They aren't a species or a disease. There are some other commonalities all vampires will share. Beyond that, you can make different types of vampires, and you can include multiple types in your world if you so desire.

A lack of one true setting. While I'm shooting for more than a DIY toolset, elements of that are there, since you choose what to implement and how in the setting. I'm never going to publish a single example of anything, because then, regardless of what I say about making it your own, those single examples will become the default assumptions of what the official world looks like. I _can_ however publish multiple highly flavorful examples, neither of which is how the world officially is, because you choose your own world.

None of that is _easy_. But that doesn't mean it is impossible. And no matter how well done it is, it cannot be a universal system, because there will always be settings (including highly focused modern fantasy) that aren't compatible with it, or will play much better with their own system. I'm actually a fan of both universal systems and unique, setting specific, settings. They each have their charm and function. While my system will be playstyle flexible, it can't be universal because it won't support certain extremes: having its own baseline leaning unavoidably (at least for me) limits its range of flex.

Of the techniques I'm using, one of the most useful ones, contrary to what I had expected, is to start with settings I kind of like, but don't like parts of (such as WoD), and identify what parts I don't like (or thing are highly unique), and what I think would be more traditional. I had originally attempted to start from a blank slate (and I still do in some cases), but after a lot of work eventually realized that it helps tremendously to look at it from a negative perspective (what parts would I take away from setting X), rather than only from a positive (what would I put into my setting). Both are necessary for me.

As I said, none of this is easy, and some parts are going to be easier or harder depending on setting. For instance, the same system also applies to my space opera setting, but the challenges are a bit different, since more things need to be clearly defined to make it functional, and those things may make it _too_ distinctly unique if I'm not very careful.


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## MGibster (Jun 23, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> I don't a have a problem with extensive lore in the abstract sense, but the _World__ of Darkness_ fandom seems more interested in discussing the lore than actually playing the game or creating homebrew settings.




Since Vampire isn't a generic game I think it's safe to say that most of the people playing it are more interested in the official setting than they are in a homebrew setting.  And I'm not sure why you're under the impression that WoD fans are more interested in discussing the lore than they are in playing the game.  I doubt there's much truth to that.    




> There simply doesn't seem be any game approximating _Dungeons & Dragons_'s diversity for the urban fantasy genre, or at least none that have achieved anywhere near as much success as _World__ of Darkness_.




The Dresden Files allows players to create pretty much any kind of supernatural critter they want and it really won't break the setting.  Want to make a different type of werewolf from those presented in the novels?  Knock yourself out.  



> I don't know what to do, so I come here to ask for advice.




Other than The Dresden Files your best bet might be something like GURPS, Champions, or Savage Worlds where you can create the kitchen sink world you're looking for.


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## Tony Vargas (Jun 23, 2019)

MGibster said:


> I'm not sure why you're under the impression that WoD fans are more interested in discussing the lore than they are in playing the game.



 rec.games.frp.storyteller and alt.games.white-wolf were very active back in the day, though discussion covered mechanics and PbP as well as more.

But what sorta made that claim ring a little true, to me, was the way oWoD books were written & Organized:  they were generally pretty good cover-to-cover reads, but terrible in-game references.  There was also an increasing emphasis on the meta-plot, the changes to and developing timeline of "the lore" of the oWoD as it worked it's way to the End Times.


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## MGibster (Jun 23, 2019)

Tony Vargas said:


> But what sorta made that claim ring a little true, to me, was the way oWoD books were written & Organized:  they were generally pretty good cover-to-cover reads, but terrible in-game references.  There was also an increasing emphasis on the meta-plot, the changes to and developing timeline of "the lore" of the oWoD as it worked it's way to the End Times.




I think a lot of gaming products from the 1990s were produced with the expectation that a significant number of people who purchased them would be reading those books rather than gaming with them. But you're right that they weren't well organized for finding the information you needed while playing.  But then a lot of games published now aren't so good for finding the information you need quickly while playing.


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## Fenris-77 (Jun 23, 2019)

The _Dresden Files_ is great, but it's not without issues. First, in runs on the Fate engine, which isn't everyone's cup of tea (although I quite like it for the right game). Second, the game has some internal balance issues around magic, but nothing deal breaking IMO. It would do a fine job with a hunter based game mimicking _Supernatural_ or indeed most of the settings in question where the magic is pretty up the middle "spell casty" (as opposed to dream based, or something else funky).

To be fair, apparently the _Accelerated_ release for DFRPG fixed some of the issues, but I haven't had a chance to look at it yet.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 23, 2019)

> World of Darkness has a stranglehold on the market. The creativity of other potential settings has no room to shine. Without competition, the genre stagnates.




While WoD is definitely the big dog in this subsection of the hobby, it doesn’t really have enough power to truly stifle creative competition.  To the contrary, I’d assert that it’s enormous popularity has generated a significant amount of “Not-WoD” yearning for other designers to tap into.

The only thing is, “Not-WoDism” is not unified in its desires, so it will be very difficult for something different to grow beyond niche status.  Hell, there are people playing urban fantasy/horror in the various iterations of CoC, itself a venerable and popular system.

As I write this, I am reminded of how impressed I was playing Monster of the Week.  It was only a brief intro style adventure run over a couple of sessions, but I remember it being fun.  And my character was a diminutive but sassy young first responder- she had no special powers but for her extensive understanding of what was in her ambulance.

(Used the paddles to give a hungry critter a NASTY shock when it got too close.)

My (limited) understanding of that game leads me to believe it could handle a pretty broad swath of urban fantasy/horror.  We were slated to run a different campaign with different PCs, but it fizzled for a variety of real-world reasons.  I was to be playing a fallen angel living as a human...


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## innerdude (Jun 23, 2019)

The biggest problem with the popularity of urban fantasy is that vampires aren't cool anymore. There's a dearth of original media material. 

_Twilight_, the execrable films moreso than the books, destroyed "urban fantasy." In terms of books, there's very little original material being produced, because it's passe. Stuff written by once-popular urban fantasy writers like Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, Laurell K. Hamilton, etc., are 15+ years old now. None of the _Underworld_ films after the second one were any good.

As a cultural "zeitgeist," urban fantasy just isn't nearly as much of a thing anymore.

And the OP already touched on the other problem, which is that the most well-known urban fantasy RPG universe has fallen on hard times.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 23, 2019)

innerdude said:


> The biggest problem with the popularity of urban fantasy is that vampires aren't cool anymore. There's a dearth of original media material.



_Whaaaaaaaaaat?_


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jun 23, 2019)

When a fiction genre is too popular then it become "old fashioned", for example the far west movies with indians and cowboys. And people would rather fiction set in "exotic" places. For example a teenage who lives in a little town like sci-fi set in megacities with high skyscrapers but a geek living in a great city would rather fantasy set in country and wild zones. An European feel curiosity about manga set in feudal Japan, but a Japanese boy would rather fantasy in a civilization like European.   

When Twilight and the rest of supernatural romance works were too popular, they become old fashioned, like the monsters of the hammer films, or the psycho-killers from 70-80's horror movies. Today to feel true fear they would rather some survival horror videogames like "Dead by daylight". 

And there is other reason. Blockbuster superheroes movies, and zombie-apocalypse works, killed the urban fantasy. Now the readers and TV watchers don't want stories about the heroes killing the monster of the week.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 23, 2019)

> Now the readers and TV watchers don't want stories about the heroes killing the monster of the week.




Depends on how you define “monster”.  _Criminal Minds_ will be airing it’s 15th season this fall.  Sure, it’s not supernatural urban fantasy/horror, but MotW is the formula for it and other successful action shows.  

I’d argue that _Kolchack: the Night Stalker_ (ABC) and _Constantine _(NBC) were well received, but their Nielsen numbers were low.  But those gross numbers are calculated across demographics, not within a genre’s fan base.  They weren’t killed due to unpopularity within the genre, but rather, their lack of appeal to America in general.  Both probably would have done better on smaller cable channels like SyFy.  Hell, Constantine’s been reprised in the Arrowverse- the character is a regular on _Legends of Tomorrow_.


----------



## GMMichael (Jun 23, 2019)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> _Whaaaaaaaaaat?_




That was my sentiment.

I don't think that vampire-unpopularity is a problem though, because Hollywood can pretty easily pop something out and turn that around.

I'd pay to see Gary Oldman in Dracula 2.  Just sayin'.


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## Arilyn (Jun 23, 2019)

What sort of rule system do you like? You are going to probably have to go with a toolbox, or a game that has its own world/ lore that can be easily tweaked. Do you like Fate? GURPS? Savage Worlds? Hero? Gumshoe? Are you willing to scrounge around for out of print games? Angel, (sister rpg to Buffy) is really easy to mold into something totally divorced from the tv show. 

It's hard to give advice when we don't really know what kind of system appeals to you.


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## Manbearcat (Jun 23, 2019)

Does Blades in the Dark not qualify as Urban Fantasy?

Grimdark, cutthroat urban setting (Duskvol) - check

Paranormal (overruneth and all kinds) - check

Magic - check

Factions/tribes embroiled in endless war to ascend hierarchy - check


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 23, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> But I digress. You’re right about me arbitrarily discounting a setting. I failed to articulate myself and for that I apologize. I don’t like Mage because I only have a choice between “consensus reality” and “supernal realms.” If the M20 book was anything to go by, the “traditions” are lunatic radicals that hate modern civilization and the “technocracy” are lunatics that want to literally destroy the human spirit like a Saturday morning cartoon villain. The Awakening has a more obvious “not so different” theme for its heroes/villains, but is essentially the same conflict with different window dressing. It’s not as flexible as it claims to be. There is so much baggage in terms of setting and authorial intent. A toolkit it is not.



Have you looked at all at Mage for Chronicles of Darkness 2nd edition?  Beyond sharing the name and the broad contours of the magic system, they're extremely different games.  No consensual reality, and definitely no bases on Saturn.


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## Fenris-77 (Jun 23, 2019)

Manbearcat said:


> Does Blades in the Dark not qualify as Urban Fantasy?
> 
> Grimdark, cutthroat urban setting (Duskvol) - check
> 
> ...



QFT - great system.

There are still recent exemplars of urban fantasy that have been excellent. The show based on Lev Grossman's _Magicians_ was good, _Supernatural_ is going into it's 14th season and has been hugely popular, _The Strain_ was good. Heck, even _Riverdale_ is essentially urban fantasy. Ghosts, spooks, magic and the rest in a modern setting are still very popular and still seem to be everywhere - you just need to avoid that particular "sexy vampires in black leather" WoD bit and most people are still very much on board. Even that can be done well - the _Dresden Files_ has some very WoD bits around the edges and is still wildly popular.


----------



## Zhaleskra (Jun 24, 2019)

WoD has immersion breaking rules. In order to shoot the guy in the car, my bullet has to succeed in getting through the window first? While I understand what they're aiming for it just seems like too many rolls.

d20 Modern was fun, but the base classes were the best case for a traditionally class-based system to say "why have classes at all?".

I could probably do a decent Lucifer (DC/Netflix) using Steve Jackson's In Nomine with some adjustment, _i.e.,_ Lucifer being an Angel, angels cannot become demons, demons can't become angels.


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## dbm (Jun 24, 2019)

Going to the heart of the OP, this is the downside of a game that heavily integrated system and world. Pick the generic system you like the best and go from there. 

If you like more crunchy systems then HERO or GURPS would be good to consider. Both have urban fantasy genre sets available (Monster Hunters for GURPS, IIRC Dark Hero for HERO).

If you like more narrative systems then Fate or Cortex Prime (when it comes out) would be good options.


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## sallygreen (Jun 24, 2019)

I agree with you!


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## sallygreen (Jun 24, 2019)

I totally agree with you


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## VelvetViolet (Jun 24, 2019)

TwoSix said:


> Have you looked at all at Mage for Chronicles of Darkness 2nd edition?  Beyond sharing the name and the broad contours of the magic system, they're extremely different games.  No consensual reality, and definitely no bases on Saturn.






Saturn bases aren’t bad. Where I get confused is why there’s a need to go so far beyond urban fantasy. Scifi and cyberpunk are present from the start.


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## TwoSix (Jun 24, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> Saturn bases aren’t bad. Where I get confused is why there’s a need to go so far beyond urban fantasy. Scifi and cyberpunk are present from the start.



In Mage: The Ascension they are, but not in Mage: The Awakening.


----------



## Kaodi (Jun 24, 2019)

What work does "urban" actually do in "urban fantasy" ? A city is mostly a place where rural fantasy traditions congregate and mix. The system should only ever be described as modern or contemporary fantasy. The "urban" is merely a setting.


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## VelvetViolet (Jun 24, 2019)

TwoSix said:


> In Mage: The Ascension they are, but not in Mage: The Awakening.



Yes, but my overall argument was aimed at every iteration of _World of Darkness_. _Mage: The Awakening_ has an entirely different set of baggage. I believe the _Mage Chroniclers' Guide_ attempted to provide alternative options, but providing options isn't really the intent of the games as a whole. They're married to very specific settings with specific themes and don't invest much in alternative settings. A number of their creative choices I don't agree with.

For example, I've never liked how either has dealt with ghosts and similar. The penumbra/twilight is a headache (I much prefer _The Everlasting_'s simplified "reverie" concept) and the CoD/GMC 2e flowcharts are another headache. There are tons of things I could criticize, but one point I think of pertinence would be that spirits are treated as subject to our conceptions of space-time despite being defined by a lack of corporeality. There are rare situations where this isn't the case (the _Ghost Stories_ book had the ghost of a town), but for the most part they work according to the same logic as D&D's incorporeal undead. Which is great if your focus is combat, but not if it's on mystery, horror or emulating genre fiction.



Kaodi said:


> What work does "urban" actually do in "urban fantasy" ? A city is mostly a place where rural fantasy traditions congregate and mix. The system should only ever be described as modern or contemporary fantasy. The "urban" is merely a setting.



Point taken. I suppose it would be more appropriate to call it modern fantasy or contemporary fantasy.


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## TwoSix (Jun 24, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> Yes, but my overall argument was aimed at every iteration of _World of Darkness_. _Mage: The Awakening_ has an entirely different set of baggage. I believe the _Mage Chroniclers' Guide_ attempted to provide alternative options, but providing options isn't really the intent of the games as a whole. They're married to very specific settings with specific themes and don't invest much in alternative settings. A number of their creative choices I don't agree with.



No problem.  A lot of people just see the name "Mage" and the Sphere system and don't realize how different the two games really are.  I agree with your point that is not a toolbox game, nor is it intended to be.


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## Aldarc (Jun 24, 2019)

Manbearcat said:


> Does Blades in the Dark not qualify as Urban Fantasy?
> 
> Grimdark, cutthroat urban setting (Duskvol) - check
> 
> ...



It is definitely Urban Fantasy, but the BitD setting is incredibly restrictive both in geographic scope (Duskvol) and its breadth of urban fantasy tropes. I don't think that one could readily use BitD for a generic urban fantasy game. It curtails itself to a fairly particular play experience. This is one of its strengths, but it can also work against its favor. 



Zhaleskra said:


> d20 Modern was fun, but the base classes were the best case for a traditionally class-based system to say "why have classes at all?".



This is how Modern AGE, possibly the closest successor to d20 Modern (albeit 3d6 instead of d20), approached it. Instead of adopting the three class system of the AGE system (warrior, mage, rogue), it instead opted to go classless.


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## Manbearcat (Jun 24, 2019)

Aldarc said:


> It is definitely Urban Fantasy, but the BitD setting is incredibly restrictive both in geographic scope (Duskvol) and its breadth of urban fantasy tropes. I don't think that one could readily use BitD for a generic urban fantasy game. It curtails itself to a fairly particular play experience. This is one of its strengths, but it can also work against its favor.




Ah ok.

(I’m asking this out of a position of ignorance) So when someone refers to “Urban Fantasy” in TTRPGing, are they referring to “a malleable game/system without a tight play premise baked in so it can be drifted to (say) the modern focus of ‘paranormal romance’ or something similar?”


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## Aldarc (Jun 24, 2019)

Manbearcat said:


> Ah ok.
> 
> (I’m asking this out of a position of ignorance) So when someone refers to “Urban Fantasy” in TTRPGing, are they referring to “a malleable game/system without a tight play premise baked in so it can be drifted to (say) the modern focus of ‘paranormal romance’ or something similar?”



In the context of the OP? I would say, yes, that appears to be the case: 


BoxCrayonTales said:


> Of the urban fantasy games that have come out in the last three decades or so, the one that seems to dominate the market is _World of Darkness_. Well, that and _Shadowrun_. I could be wrong, that's the impression I get. What sets _World of Darkness _apart from something like _Dungeons & Dragons_, _All Flesh Must be Eaten_, _Urban Shadows_, _Monsterhearts_, or _Feed _is that it isn't a "generic" game which supports a variety of settings. It has a three decade old convoluted comic-book style continuity baked in.
> 
> The less said about the mechanics the better. Especially the superpowers. It you want my opinion at its most succinct, then I believe a mechanic like _Godbound_'s words is vastly superior to the mess that is _World_/_Chronicles of Darkness_.
> 
> ...



The underlying desire seems to be for something that does for urban fantasy what D&D does for pseudo-medieval fantasy, especially without the various lore/edition/setting baggage of WoD.


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## Umbran (Jun 24, 2019)

Manbearcat said:


> Ah ok.
> 
> (I’m asking this out of a position of ignorance) So when someone refers to “Urban Fantasy” in TTRPGing, are they referring to “a malleable game/system without a tight play premise baked in so it can be drifted to (say) the modern focus of ‘paranormal romance’ or something similar?”




It seems the OP wants that.  It isn't part of Urban Fantasy in and of itself.


----------



## Umbran (Jun 24, 2019)

Kaodi said:


> What work does "urban" actually do in "urban fantasy" ? A city is mostly a place where rural fantasy traditions congregate and mix. The system should only ever be described as modern or contemporary fantasy. The "urban" is merely a setting.




The urban element is a major trope of the genre from its roots in fiction.  Saying "urban is merely a setting" is like saying for Space Opera "laser/blaster guns are merely another weapon".  Yes, you can play a Space Opera game without laser guns blasting away, but they are so common in the fiction as to be ubiquitous, and it is probably fair to build you game with the assumption that such things are present.  

Same with Urban Fantasy - yes, you can play such a game in a rural setting as well, but you have to make affordances when you do that, which most of the genre that uses the urban trope does not have to make.


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## VelvetViolet (Jun 24, 2019)

Aldarc said:


> In the context of the OP? I would say, yes, that appears to be the case:
> The underlying desire seems to be for something that does for urban fantasy what D&D does for pseudo-medieval fantasy, especially without the various lore/edition/setting baggage of WoD.



Yes.

Not only that, I'm interested in analyses and discussion of world building and themes. There is huge potential yet to be tapped here.

I'm interested in challenging our conceptions of how monsters are supposed to work. Fiction like _American Vampire_ and _Dresden Files_ posit settings where multiple different types of, say, vampires and werewolves co-exist. Fiction like _Lost Girl _treats all monsters as essentially vampiric in nature, even if they feed on abstract concepts like dreams and anger.

I'm interesting in analyzing what makes these monsters tick in our minds. What makes the different varieties of vampires identifiable as vampires? What makes the different werewolves identifiable? For example, both _Vampire: The Masquerade_ and _Feed_ use the internal struggle between humanity and vampirism as a thematic conflict. Werewolves are liminal beings, existing between human and animal yet gaining supernatural insight and knowledge from this.

I'm interested in exploring less popular and more esoteric ideas. For example, _The Everlasting_ had original concepts for sin-eating gargoyles and immortal grail questers among others. Monsterhearts has a wide variety of both official and fan-made "skins" representing metaphors for humanity, like an ice queen with literal ice powers (The Frozen) or a kid whose "imaginary" friend is all too real (The Shadow).


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## Aldarc (Jun 24, 2019)

Hmmm...I am not sure whether any hypothetical "D&D of urban fantasy" could delve into that sort of complexity well. It's not as if D&D is good for exploring the complexities and nuances of the European Middle Ages or Renaissance. D&D does a fairly shallow job of exploring anything beyond the objectification of monsters as a source of loot, XP, and the colonial moral superiority of the adventurers.* 

* "The Murder Hobo's Burden"?


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## Umbran (Jun 24, 2019)

Aldarc said:


> ... and the colonial moral superiority of the adventurers.*
> 
> * "The Murder Hobo's Burden"?




Moral superiority of the adventurers, sure.  It is only "colonial" if said adventurers move in and take over the place.  Settling down is not in the Murder Hobo Manifesto - they are typically raiders, rather than colonizers.


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## dbm (Jun 24, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> I'm interested in exploring less popular and more esoteric ideas.



That definitely says to me that you want a toolkit or generic system that will let you game a lot of different scenarios. Finding an existing game for an esoteric niche is likely to be as easy as finding a winning lottery ticket.


----------



## Tony Vargas (Jun 24, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> Saturn bases aren’t bad. Where I get confused is why there’s a need to go so far beyond urban fantasy. Scifi and cyberpunk are present from the start.



Sci-fi for two of the 9 Traditions and 2-3 of the 5 Conventions (depending on how far the Progenitors are taking it in the story, and the Syndicate & NWO don't need to go there, at all) - cyberpunk for only one of each.

In no one plays a Virtual Adept or tangles with It-X, no cyberpunk.  No SoE or Void Engineers, no space opera.  You might get some Tom Clancy level sci-fi from the Progenitors or James Bond gadgets from the NWO, but on the PC side, you have 7 traditions & the Hollow Ones using non-technological magick.  

If you /just/ want magic along the lines of Harry Potter to Harry Dresden, you're down to the Order of Hermes (and maybe the Verbena), but you /coould/ restrict your story like that, if you wanted.  



TwoSix said:


> In Mage: The Ascension they are, but not in Mage: The Awakening.



 One of many things that was better about the oWoD.  ;P



TwoSix said:


> No problem.  A lot of people just see the name "Mage" and the Sphere system and don't realize how different the two games really are.  I agree with your point that is not a toolbox game, nor is it intended to be.



 M:tA may not have been intended as a toolbox game, but it sure could be used as one.   M:t_A_, OTOH, not s'much.

(Hey, it's they're own fault for using 'Awekening.')



Aldarc said:


> In the context of the OP? I would say, yes, that appears to be the case:
> The underlying desire seems to be for something that does for urban fantasy what D&D does for pseudo-medieval fantasy, especially without the various lore/edition/setting baggage of WoD.



 Lock it down into a class/level system that models a narrow, intractable, self-referent sub-genre?  

WWGS 'splats' get awfully close to classes, so all that's missing is levels. ;P


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## Manbearcat (Jun 24, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> Yes.
> 
> Not only that, I'm interested in analyses and discussion of world building and themes. There is huge potential yet to be tapped here.
> 
> ...




I'm with [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] here.

I don't think the answer is a single general use Urban Fantasy TTRPGing system with theme/premise-neutral mechanics to rule them all (this almost always leads to an overwhelming GM presence in play trajectory to manufacture an experience...typically putting players in a significantly more passive position than in a game like Blades in the Dark).  This is precisely why I brought up Blades in the Dark.  

I think the answer is MORE niche Urban Fantasy TTRPGing systems with encoded theme/premise and a holisitic approach to system (all mechanics, reward cycles, ethos, participant authority) that relentlessly focuses on producing an emergent fiction and participant experience around those things.


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## PenBoy99 (Jun 25, 2019)

I liked Angel RPGs build your own demon approach.


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## VelvetViolet (Jun 25, 2019)

Tony Vargas said:


> One of many things that was better about the oWoD.  ;P
> 
> M:tA may not have been intended as a toolbox game, but it sure could be used as one.   M:t_A_, OTOH, not s'much.
> 
> (Hey, it's they're own fault for using 'Awekening.')



Can we please not get into those stupid vitriolic edition wars for the umpteenth time? For Pete's sake, you are still operating on the fallacy of never reading past the 15 years old first edition rulebooks, if even that far. _Mage The Awakening_ included DIY magical traditions, mad science and star gates in supplements published a decade ago.

I think _Mage The Ascension_ and _Mage The Awakening_ are equally insane. They are fundamentally about different flavors of egocentric jerks, who are clearly metaphors for political fringes, fighting to take over the world and oppress everyone else. While not a bad idea in isolation, the toxic community thinks these jerks are supposed to be the heroes. (The developers literally wrote a "storyteller handbook" of essays explaining their intent, and more, which went completely contrary to how most players played. I already mentioned the death threats aimed at 3e.) Any interest I might have had was long ago destroyed by that toxic community. A community that clearly hasn't improved since I left and is probably much worse if the horror stories I heard about the V5 edition war are anything to go by.

The "political parties" are about as sensible as the cliques in _Divergent_. Which would make sense when you notice that they seem to be based on high school cliques, ethnic stereotypes, Atlantean government agents and such. Wiccans, Aleister Crowley, Native American stereotypes, kungfu movie fans, stoners, _Matrix _fans, magic police, mad scientists, New Age groupies, serial killers, etc. Absolutely none of those make any sense as political affiliations. To add insult to injury, these are extremely Eurocentric. The entirety of Asia's occult history is relegated to kung fu fighters, serial killers and stoners? The entirety of every other continent is relegated to "shamans"? Really? (I know one of the _Awakening _books tried to pull in more global history by mentioning Kumari Kandam and other mythical civilizations, but too little too late.)

This has been pretty much the case for all _World of Darkness_, except _Changeling: The Lost_. _Lost_ was probably the single best game ever produced because it channeled universal archetypes that were otherwise absent everywhere else and offered an unparalleled degree of customization as far as _World of Darkness_ games go. I can only wish all the other games were like that.

Considering the vitriolic edition wars, I find it ironic that the plot of _Bloodlines 2_ starts with the Camarilla being killed off and replaced with a set of factions like the "pioneers." Feels more like _Requiem_'s covenants, except maybe with better execution this time. (IIRC, V5 made a lot of changes in a loosely similar vein to _Requiem_. Which itself was trying to recapture the lost feel of _Masquerade_'s first edition. The more things change, the more they stay the same and all that jazz.)

But I digress. The point of this thread is to be constructive and creative, not to criticize everything I dislike about _World of Darkness_. Which is a lot. That said, I do give _Mage _in either iteration props for using a syntactic magic system (copied and modified from _Ars Magica_) and including "magical traditions" mechanics for players to personalize how their character performs magic. IMO it is vastly overshadowed by _Spheres of Power_, though.


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## Umbran (Jun 25, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> Can we please not get into those stupid vitriolic edition wars for the umpteenth time?




You would replace stupid vitriolic edition wars with a similar screed against the entire line as a whole?  That is not an improvement.

We get it.  You don't like WoD.  That's been made abundantly clear.

Now what?  Having gotten that across... what's the goal?  What do you want to get out of this thread?


----------



## Tyler Do'Urden (Jun 25, 2019)

But... what if I like sexy vampires in black leather?


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## TwoSix (Jun 25, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> But I digress. The point of this thread is to be constructive and creative, not to criticize everything I dislike about _World of Darkness_. Which is a lot. That said, I do give _Mage _in either iteration props for using a syntactic magic system (copied and modified from _Ars Magica_) and including "magical traditions" mechanics for players to personalize how their character performs magic. IMO it is vastly overshadowed by _Spheres of Power_, though.



3.X using the Spheres of Power classes wouldn't be a bad start for an urban fantasy game.  You'd have to expand non-magical options and update equipment lists, but I think that would be possible by using a modified Spheres of Might system.

(It's probably way too much work, but I'd love to see the SoP system adapted to the 5e chassis.)


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## Lord Shark (Jun 25, 2019)

Has anyone mentioned _City of Mist _yet? It's kind of a cross between urban fantasy and superheroes that reminds me of Matt Wagner's _Mage_ comics.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 25, 2019)

Tyler Do'Urden said:


> But... what if I like sexy vampires in black leather?




Vamps in black leather
So tight it offends
My holy water
Almost reaching the end
Charming I can’t resist
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can't say any more

'Cause they drain you
Yes they drain you
Oh how they drain you

Grazing on people, some hand in hand
Just what they’re going through I can't understand
Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend
Just what you want to be, you will be in the end

And they drain you
Yes they drain you
Oh how they drain you
Oh how they drain you

Vamps in black leather
So tight it offends
My holy water
Almost...


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## Tony Vargas (Jun 25, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> Can we please not get into those stupid vitriolic edition wars for the umpteenth time?



 Vitriolic?  You clearly didn't read the post I wrote.  ;P
...now, /sarcastic/ I'll cop to.



> are clearly metaphors for political fringes, fighting to take over the world and oppress everyone else. While not a bad idea in isolation, the toxic community thinks these jerks are supposed to be the heroes.



Storyteller & the oWoD were very much a product of the 90s, which, ironically, in spite of being a rather pleasant period economically & by a number of other measures, sported pop culture rife with conspiracy theory.  The idea of Vampires pulling the strings in every major city, Garou fighting a secret war with lovecraftian wyrm-monsters behind The Veil, and science/technology, themselves, being just one flavor of magic favored by the illuminati-style faction of wizards currently with the upper hand in a conspiracy-war as old as time, were all quite compatible with that end-of-history zeitgeist.  

Then history continued right along without all that.



> But I digress. The point of this thread is to be constructive and creative, not to criticize everything I dislike about _World of Darkness_.



Feel free to begin with the constructive & creative part any time.  



> syntactic magic system (copied and modified from _Ars Magica_) and including "magical traditions" mechanics for players to personalize how their character performs magic.



 The Ars Magica DNA is pretty clear, as much or more so in the history as in the systems, and Lion Rampant merged with White Wolf three years before M:tA, so hardly surprising.


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## Fenris-77 (Jun 25, 2019)

Mage is bonkers. I don't hate the basic system though. That said, Ars Magica is probably a better model for Urban fantasy with powerful mages, despite the very medieval setting. I don't think *I'd* necessarily do all that conversion, but if someone wanted to use that WoD mechanics the fluff can always be changed.  If you started with just _Hunter_ and worked out it might not be so bad, then you flavor the vamps, wolves and magi any way you wanted.

It's probably easier to just use Fate or something.


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## VelvetViolet (Jun 25, 2019)

Tony Vargas said:


> Vitriolic?  You clearly didn't read the post I wrote.  ;P



Sorry. I'm still prone to apoplexy whenever I see someone claiming _World of Darkness_ is superior to _Chronicles of Darkness_.



Tony Vargas said:


> Feel free to begin with the constructive & creative part any time.



I have my work cut out for me. I'll try to post some world building later when I get more time.


----------



## Tony Vargas (Jun 25, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> Sorry. I'm still prone to apoplexy whenever I see someone claiming _World of Darkness_ is superior to _Chronicles of Darkness_.



 I guess I did say "better," but it was in the interest of humor and sarcasm.  I /did/ like the crazy way the M:tA Paradigm rubric let you mash genres (to say the least), and didn't find it in the little I saw of M:tA*** - but I'd really already lost interest in Storyteller by the time the nWoD came out, so everything that followed - including all your obvious trauma** - wasn't on my radar.

I also liked the idea, that the oWoD never really went for, of the non-supernatural world /seeming/ just like our own, that only once you get Embraced or Awakened or whatever, do you get to see behind the curtain.  WWGS never quite went there, the oWoD was always "the Goth-Punk World," a darker reality with fictional evil corporations and whatnot that were just not-up-for-debate evil.  And, y'know, flying buttresses on the local McDonalds.*




> I have my work cut out for me. I'll try to post some world building later when I get more time.



I suppose it's clear enough where you're coming from, but still I don't quite see where you're going.  If D&D's support for different settings (which are, ultimately, not all that different, since D&D mechanics just don't cover a huge range) is what you're aiming for, I honestly think you should aim higher. 














* that's an in-joke. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one in on it.  

** I've got the old Post Traumatic Edition-war Syndrome, m'self, just a different war between different editions of a different game. So I get being triggered by "better."  

*** (and, no, I'm not letting the 'A' thing go, it's like they wanted the confusion... or should I say Ambiguity?)


----------



## Umbran (Jun 26, 2019)

Fenris-77 said:


> Mage is bonkers. I don't hate the basic system though.




Our group described _Mage: The Ascension_ as the best game when in the right hands, and the absolute worst game when in the wrong hands.



> It's probably easier to just use Fate or something.




Given that FATE has _The Dresden Files_ right there for you to manipulate to your whims, yeah, that'd be a good alternative.


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## dbm (Jun 26, 2019)

In a moment of serendipity, this just dropped into my inbox: Ngen Mapu

It’s a new urban fantasy worldbook for Fate based on South American folk lore.


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## Aldarc (Jun 26, 2019)

Manbearcat said:


> I'm with [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] here.
> 
> I don't think the answer is a single general use Urban Fantasy TTRPGing system with theme/premise-neutral mechanics to rule them all (this almost always leads to an overwhelming GM presence in play trajectory to manufacture an experience...typically putting players in a significantly more passive position than in a game like Blades in the Dark).  This is precisely why I brought up Blades in the Dark.
> 
> I think the answer is MORE niche Urban Fantasy TTRPGing systems with encoded theme/premise and a holisitic approach to system (all mechanics, reward cycles, ethos, participant authority) that relentlessly focuses on producing an emergent fiction and participant experience around those things.



Here is where I would advocate the use of Urban Shadows. Urban Shadows (and its use of the PbtA system) leans heavily into exploring through play the implications, complications, and satisfactions of "being" the supernatural (or the aware mundane). The playbook is meant to embrace the archetypes and such. From what I recall, there is a Sorcerer-esque aspect to this where you are deciding between power and your "humanity." If you go to far down the track, then I believe you retire your character and become the monster people think you are. If [MENTION=6686357]BoxCrayonTales[/MENTION] wants to explore different types of werewolves and such, then it would not be too difficult to create custom playbooks. 

I also recommend Dresden Files Accelerated. I'm not a fan of Dresden Files as a franchise, but I have found its system good for creating a fairly generic urban fantasy setting. Similar to PbtA playbooks, you select Mantles for your character. These mantles are at different power levels and it does not pretend that these are balanced. But (1) it's Fate which tends to have less focus on balance, and (2) a mundane person will probably not naturally be on the same level as a fae, vampire, or wizard anyway. 

I had planned on using Dresden Files Accelerated for running an urban fantasy campaign set in 1847 Vienna - an imperial city amidst revolutionary unrest that will erupt across Europe within a year - but centered around an amateur paranormal investigation society. The major benefit of setting it in Vienna was that my players - as inhabitants of 2019 Vienna - had a grasp of its location, culture, and history.


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## Jer (Jun 26, 2019)

Aldarc said:


> I also recommend Dresden Files Accelerated. I'm not a fan of Dresden Files as a franchise, but I have found its system good for creating a fairly generic urban fantasy setting.




I suspect that's because the Dresden Files franchise is as close to "generic urban fantasy setting" as you can get.  And I don't meant that as a knock - I personally love the Dresden Files - but that Butcher has basically created a series that is as close to "D&D fantasy" as a genre as the urban fantasy genre gets.  His world is basically a "kitchen-sink" world of fantasy and horror tropes - much like the assumptions of a "core" D&D setting is a kitchen-sink of fantasy tropes.  He doesn't come up with cutesy-clever names for his creatures, letting vampires be vampires, werewolves be werewolves, wizards be wizards, and faeries be faeries, and mostly doesn't play the "everything you know about X is wrong" game with the monsters either.  (The one example I can think of off the top of my head is the various vampire courts, and even there there is specifically the Black Court who have it as a specific plot point that they are 100% Draculas as per Stoker's novel.  And it isn't like Red Court and White Court vampires are some unique thing that hasn't appeared before - the psychic vampire and the monstrous creature pretending to be human are both also vampire tropes, just maybe not as well-known).  And where he does have setting specific things they tend to be extrapolations of existing fantasy tropes/myth/fairy tales/etc. - like the structure of the Fae Courts, or the Knights of the Cross (who are pretty clearly D&D paladins dropped into a modern setting).  All of that not only makes for a setting that is very "gameable" - it also makes for a setting that is very recognizable for anyone who knows the tropes of the D&D fantasy genre.


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## gepetto (Jun 26, 2019)

I disagree with the OP. I've used NWoD basic ruleset for a bunch of different settings. Everything from an American revolution era game about taming the west and dealing with native creatures that eat settlers while fighting off the natives to star wars and a Firefly type of setting.

That basic ruleset is very simple, fast to teach, intuitive and flexible. Its really easy to bring to just about any idea. I'm not even a fan of the core setting lore much but I've used the rules for everything for years. 

I agree it would be nice to see some variety in urban settings because those are my favorite and I would like to have some more material to mine for ideas. But I dont see a need for any more basic rule sets. The various games out there already more then cover the need for hard rules IMO.


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## Michael Silverbane (Jun 26, 2019)

gepetto said:


> That basic ruleset is very simple, fast to teach, intuitive and flexible. Its really easy to bring to just about any idea. I'm not even a fan of the core setting lore much but I've used the rules for everything for years.




This has been my experience, as well. Even the old WoD, which was much more scattershot in its rules, was simple and intuitive enough to turn into almost anything. This was evidenced in the numberless netbooks that fans made in that era using that system for whatever their favorite setting was, from Highlander, to Speed Racer to Mutant, and so on.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jun 26, 2019)

We can't forget the urban fantasy has been very popular in the television from decades ago. For example comedies as "Bewitched", "Genie in a bottle" or "Sabrina the teen witch", but also "monster of the week(/season)" like "Charmed", "Buffy vampire slayer", "Grimm", "Supernatural", "True Blood". 

Some players don't want urban fantasy because is too close to our real life, and they would rather to imagine they are in a different world, with other culture. If you live in a big city, the buildings are boring for you, but the forestal zones are enough "exotic". 

* WoD is more fluff than crunch, and the metaplot in the RPGs can't be like before internet.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 27, 2019)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> We can't forget the urban fantasy has been very popular in the television from decades ago. For example comedies as "Bewitched", "Genie in a bottle" or "Sabrina the teen witch", but also "monster of the week(/season)" like "Charmed", "Buffy vampire slayer", "Grimm", "Supernatural", "True Blood".
> 
> Some players don't want urban fantasy because is too close to our real life, and they would rather to imagine they are in a different world, with other culture. If you live in a big city, the buildings are boring for you, but the forestal zones are enough "exotic".
> 
> * WoD is more fluff than crunch, and the metaplot in the RPGs can't be like before internet.




See also _Forever Knight_, _Friday the 13th: the Series_, the aforementioned _Kolchak_, _Dark Shadows _and so many more.


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## Sword of Spirit (Jun 27, 2019)

Jer said:


> I suspect that's because the Dresden Files franchise is as close to "generic urban fantasy setting" as you can get.  And I don't meant that as a knock - I personally love the Dresden Files - but that Butcher has basically created a series that is as close to "D&D fantasy" as a genre as the urban fantasy genre gets.  His world is basically a "kitchen-sink" world of fantasy and horror tropes - much like the assumptions of a "core" D&D setting is a kitchen-sink of fantasy tropes.  He doesn't come up with cutesy-clever names for his creatures, letting vampires be vampires, werewolves be werewolves, wizards be wizards, and faeries be faeries, and mostly doesn't play the "everything you know about X is wrong" game with the monsters either.  (The one example I can think of off the top of my head is the various vampire courts, and even there there is specifically the Black Court who have it as a specific plot point that they are 100% Draculas as per Stoker's novel.  And it isn't like Red Court and White Court vampires are some unique thing that hasn't appeared before - the psychic vampire and the monstrous creature pretending to be human are both also vampire tropes, just maybe not as well-known).  And where he does have setting specific things they tend to be extrapolations of existing fantasy tropes/myth/fairy tales/etc. - like the structure of the Fae Courts, or the Knights of the Cross (who are pretty clearly D&D paladins dropped into a modern setting).  All of that not only makes for a setting that is very "gameable" - it also makes for a setting that is very recognizable for anyone who knows the tropes of the D&D fantasy genre.




That's interesting. Given that it seems to be a fairly popular or well-received game, it seems to also be evidence that having a less focused, more "generic" modern fantasy setting can work well and not be bland.

It makes me want to take a look at it, except for Fate. I just can't handle Fate. Why, oh why, did it have to be Fate?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 27, 2019)

Sword of Spirit said:


> That's interesting. Given that it seems to be a fairly popular or well-received game, it seems to also be evidence that having a less focused, more "generic" modern fantasy setting can work well and not be bland.
> 
> It makes me want to take a look at it, except for Fate. I just can't handle Fate. Why, oh why, did it have to be Fate?




Because...it was Fate.


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## Aldarc (Jun 27, 2019)

Sword of Spirit said:


> That's interesting. Given that it seems to be a fairly popular or well-received game, it seems to also be evidence that having a less focused, more "generic" modern fantasy setting can work well and not be bland.
> 
> It makes me want to take a look at it, except for Fate. I just can't handle Fate. Why, oh why, did it have to be Fate?



Fred Hicks (Evil Hat Productions) is good friends (and longtime gaming buddy) with Jim Butcher and the owner of Jim Butcher's official forums.


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## dbm (Jun 27, 2019)

More than that, Fred is on record that Fate was _specifically created_ to emulate the ups and downs of a Dresden adventure. Spirit of the Century was just a test-run for the system.


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## Fenris-77 (Jun 27, 2019)

dbm said:


> More than that, Fred is on record that Fate was _specifically created_ to emulate the ups and downs of a Dresden adventure. Spirit of the Century was just a test-run for the system.



And this makes me like it even more. The Dresden books are some of my favorites.


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## pedr (Jun 27, 2019)

For a unashamedly British take on urban fantasy, perhaps look at Liminal (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/267203/Liminal, with a quick-start here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/258103/Liminal-Quickstart). It has some setting assumptions built loosely into the character concepts, but seems flexible enough to reflect a range of supernatural/urban fantasy ideas.

It's being distributed by Modiphius so should be available in stores soon.


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## Jer (Jun 27, 2019)

Sword of Spirit said:


> That's interesting. Given that it seems to be a fairly popular or well-received game, it seems to also be evidence that having a less focused, more "generic" modern fantasy setting can work well and not be bland.
> 
> It makes me want to take a look at it, except for Fate. I just can't handle Fate. Why, oh why, did it have to be Fate?




I hear you - I'm fine with Fate but the rest of my group really isn't.  That said, the Fate Accelerated rules are lightweight enough that I think the Dresden Accelerated book would be easy enough to port to another system (I've toyed with using Icons actually - for some reason my group is fine with Icons where they aren't with Fate and I can't figure out why because the two games share so much similar DNA.  I can't believe it's just the Fate dice that makes the difference but maybe - or maybe it's just the presentation?)


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## VelvetViolet (Jun 27, 2019)

Tony Vargas said:


> I suppose it's clear enough where you're coming from, but still I don't quite see where you're going. If D&D's support for different settings (which are, ultimately, not all that different, since D&D mechanics just don't cover a huge range) is what you're aiming for, I honestly think you should aim higher.




While out of the box D&D over covers a specific set of archetypes, there's a bazillion 3pp that hacks the system to make new classes. Although it's currently only compatible with _Pathfinder _1e, _Spheres of Power_ and _Spheres of Might_ goes to show how far you can go using the D&D class formula.

Although _World of Darkness_ never opened itself up with the OGL (not counting the forgotten _Opening the Dark_ retroclone), it has enough competitors past and present to get a feel for what players and publishers were looking for in contemporary fantasy games. _Nightlife _(1990), _Nephilim _(1992), _Immortal: The Invisible War_ (1993), _Nightbane _(1995), _C.J. Carella's WitchCraft_ (1996), _The Everlasting_ (1997), _In Nomine_ (1997), _Unknown Armies_ (1998), _Nobilis _(1999), _Sorcerer _(2002), _Scion _(2007), _Dresden Files _(2010), _Monsterhearts _(2012), _Feed_ (2013), _Urban Shadows_ (2015), etc.

We can note a number of trends in the development of contemporary fantasy games, starting in the 90s. By "contemporary" I mean they superficially resemble the real world at the time of writing, so _Shadowrun _and _Rifts _don't count when strictly speaking. What distinguishes the 90s is that this is when monsters started being offered as PCs, rather than antagonists for investigator PCs to fight. Although 80s contemporary fantasy/horror games like _Call of Cthulhu_, _Beyond the Supernatural_ and _Chill _may have offered psychics and occultists as PCs, they did not offer literal monsters like vampires or werewolves.

The first generation includes _Nightlife_, _World of Darkness_, _Nephilim _and _Immortal_. They tended to be focused on factionalism and a sort of oppressive bleak conspiracy theory, echoing the horror roots of their predecessors. _Nephilim _and _Immortal _are sometimes derided as clones of _World of Darkness_, but there's no evidence they were directly inspired and they don't resemble each other much at all.
The latter half of the 90s is when the clones started showing up. The second generation sometimes lightened the horror or conspiracy aspects in favor of lighter fantasy, but that was by no means a rule. _WitchCraft _and _Everlasting _were created specifically in response to _World of Darkness_. They tried to address what they perceived as shortcomings of their opponent, such as poor support for mixed groups. As such, these used universal guidelines for developing super powers and magic. _Everlasting _got particularly creative and weird, including options for fantasy races like elves, dwarves and orcs, as well as mythical heroes a la _Exalted _or _Scion_.
At this time the tabletop market in general was shrinking due to various business and economic factors, which ultimately led to (among other things) TSR being bought by WotC, _World of Darkness_ being rebooted, and many publishers going out of business. The rise of the internet and e-retail resulted in an explosion of indie games. The third generation starts in the 2000s and continues to the present: this generation is more diverse and refined compared to its predecessors.

There's no shortage of rules systems to choose from. As I said earlier, I do like mechanics that support the intended theme of the game in question. So what's the theme? The reason why people keep coming back to the common archetypes of vampires, werewolves, witches, ghosts, and fairies is because these resonate with people. Fantasy is often about escapism, while urban fantasy is more metaphor because it shares our world superficially. _World of Darkness_ tried to use abhumans as metaphors, although _Monsterhearts _was much more obvious about this. What I would like to discuss is world building and how non-generic rules can be used to support that.

*Karma meters*

There is often a sanity meter, karma meter, corruption or light/dark side mechanic of some sort, like a humanity meter, which were implemented most uniformly in _Nightlife_'s humanity mechanic, _The Everlasting_'s torment mechanics and _Chronicles of Darkness_'s morality mechanics. _Feed_'s humanity mechanic was probably the peak of this sort of mechanic: the PCs would lose human traits and replace them with vampire traits. Other humanity mechanics were much more unwieldy in terms of what theme they were intended to espouse and how they worked in practice.

Both of _The Everlasting_ and _Chronicles of Darkness_ made the mistake of inventing a different meter for every playable splat and going out of their way to make them all feel distinct, which grew increasingly forced as the character options expanded. A number of these mechanics resulted in states of temporary or permanent insanity (or other unpleasant side effects), a concept that was recycled in _Exalted _as "limit break" and _Monsterhearts _as "darkest self."

_The Everlasting_ had personality mechanics, way more convoluted than anything in _Exalted_, that tied into the torment mechanics and which I couldn't make heads or tails of so I can't offer much critique of that except to say that it was clearly unwieldy.

_World_/_Chronicles of Darkness_ quickly fell into the trap of writing the mechanic as a stick that arbitrary inflicted _Call of Cthulhu_-style sanity loss for playing a typical RPG character (i.e. a psychopathic serial killer), which resulted in much wailing and gnashing of teeth from players, then later introducing various ways to get around it... as opposed to rewriting it to not be a stick mechanic or trying to promote styles of play other than "ragtag team of psychopathic serial killers." But I digress, so just refer to that other topic about violence in RPGs for that tangent. 

Ultimately, a karma meter is a karma meter. As _Nightlife _and _Feed _go to show, it is very easy to write most abhumans as essentially vampires struggling to retain their humanity in an overarching addiction metaphor. The lesson to be learned here is that if you are going to use a corruption mechanic to reinforce your themes and distinguish the character options, then you need to know exactly what you are doing and you need to plan ahead rather than devise new torments _ad hoc_. While karma meters and similar mechanics are not strictly necessary for urban fantasy, in my opinion having them can help to emulate aspects of the genre. _Being Human_, both US and UK versions, is my go-to example for how abhuman protagonists can struggle with their inhuman side.


*Character options*

Urban fantasy games have often offered their own equivalent of character classes, and sometimes further subdivisions, while otherwise being skill-based or the equivalent. _World of Darkness_ has "splats," _Monsterhearts _has "skins," _Urban Shadows_ has "archetypes," _The Everlasting_ has "gentes," etc. Most of these can essentially be reduced to some variation on a vampire, werewolf, wizard, ghost, fairy or some other basic archetype. In most cases these determine the PC's personality, superpowers, etc. These splats distinguish the games from purely toolkit systems, even though if we're being technical these are specific examples created by an imaginary toolkit system. The important bit is that, ideally, the archetypes are a fluff concept independent of rules. Everybody can generally describe a vampire, werewolf, wizard, ghost or fairy, even if these distinctions are ultimately arbitrary.

My recurring critique of such mechanics ties back to the "our monsters are different" and "vampire variety pack" tvtropes. You can say these implementations exist on a continuum of sorts. My go-to example for how such things are typically structured, as least for vampires, would be _Feed_: it structures vampires into "strains" that define their overarching rules and "sub-strains" that make minor changes to the parent strain. An example of a two distinct strains would be the difference between the vampires in Anne Rice's _Vampire Chronicles_ and the vampires in Guillermo Del Toro's _The Strain_. An example of sub-strains would be the clans and bloodlines of the vampires in _World_/_Chronicles of Darkness_.

You can probably see where I'm going here. I haven't been able to find a system that is built around a high level of customization for all of its options. For example:


_World of Darkness_ uses a syntactic magic system for its wizards (e.g. _Ascension_'s arete/spheres, _Awakening_'s gnosis/arcana, _Dark Ages_' foundation/pillars, _Opening the Dark_'s art/praxis), but provides magical traditions so that characters can feel very different. Even mad science and "hacking the Matrix" are covered by this. On the other hand: the vampires all follow the same basic quasi-Ricean rules with clans/bloodlines added to provide a cost break to certain superpowers and an additional vampire weakness, and the werewolves all follow the same hereditary scheme. Obscure supplements may try to provide rules for options that don't fall into these, but these are one-offs that never receive further attention.
_Dresden Files_ doesn't lack variety in terms of vampires and werewolves, although it provides only a few examples, but its wizards all use the same magical tradition.
_The Everlasting_ seemingly tries to be more diverse in its treatment of vampires, but they still follow most of the same rules regardless of their "consanguinity" (bloodline). The werewolves are limited to the pathogenic variety seen in horror movies. Spiritual warriors bound to nature spirits or "manitou" are a different splat. The same magic rules are used for every splat if they have access to it, but the "osirian" splat has unique access to a form of meta-magic.

Maybe my googlefu is just weak, but I don't recall finding an urban fantasy game that has all of the same groundwork laid for magical traditions, vampire strains and werewolf strains. They've appeared at least a few times in isolation, so I'm stumped that I haven't found them used together. And that's just for the most popular trio of vampires, werewolves and wizards. Ghosts seemingly rarely receive as much attention as PCs, despite being the general populace being way more interested in them. Fairies are a whole other can of worms.

*Ghosts' incongruous invisibility*

For whatever reason, ghosts seem to be less popular as PCs compared to vampires and such despite ghost stories making up a much larger volume of history and popular culture. (Possibly because, as one critic claims, ghosts lack "teh sexy.") There are numerous stories and urban legends of hauntings, possessions, vanishing hitchhikers, ghostly animals, vanishing houses, ghost ships, ghost towns, etc. Off the top of my head, tabletop RPGs that offer ghosts as PCs out of the box include _Lost Souls_, _Nightlife_, _World of Darkness_ (especially _Wraith _and _Orpheus_), _WitchCraft_, _The Everlasting_, _Ghostwalk_, _Monsterhearts_, _Urban Shadows_, and _Spookshow_. They all have wildly different conceptions of ghosts, and some of the time the ghosts are just one option of a monster mash. There may be a set of ghost-flavored options like ghosts, mediums, necromancers, reapers, flatliners, etc.

Although the basic concept of a ghost is recognizable (i.e. haunting your past life and either resolving your issues or stubbornly hanging on, which one observer likened to a metaphor for the grieving process), some of these games added additional elements that were sometimes at odds with the basic concept. Games like _Orpheus _and _Spookshow _rather reasonably introduced the idea of competing ghost fumigating organizations, ghosts being employed in espionage, or astral projectors using similar mechanics. Games like _Wraith _and _The Everlasting_ introduced ridiculously bleak and oppressive otherworld politics that drew attention far away from the unfinished business that defines what it means to be a ghost; while I have no problem with giving ghosts their own flourishes like pocket universes, politics, etc, being a ghost is already depressing enough and doesn't need to be made worse.

Perhaps most importantly: playing an invisible intangible ghost, while extremely handy for espionage, is extremely frustrating if you ever feel the desire to interact with the living. Not every game featuring ghosts tried to ameliorate this, and some made it worse. Some games decided to make some flavor of mediums the PCs and relegate ghosts to NPC roles, probably because the designer thought that would be more fun and not without justification. I've got nothing against that: a game like _Reaper Madness_ combining the premises of _Dead Like Me_, _Final Destination_ and _Tru Calling_ (among others) sounds absolutely amazing.

*Werewolves' lack of superpowers*

Our monsters traditionally have all sorts of reality warping powers. Wizards can build magic castles like Hogwarts. Ghosts call pull off all the crazy SFX seen in _Poltergeist_, _The Ring_, _The Shining_, _The Grudge_, _Grave Encounters_ and more. Vampires can control animals, control the weather, levitate, control minds, change shape, etc. Werewolves can turn into wolfish beasts with enhanced physical abilities and... not much else?

There's a big disconnect between how werewolves and, say, vampires are treated in terms of superpowers. Vampires can range from generic mooks for the heroes to stake all the way to having laundry lists of superpowers like levitation and mind control and whatever, which can be traced back to Bram Stoker's _Dracula_. By contrast, werewolves almost never receive powers beyond shape shifting, presumably because authors are not creative? _World of Darkness_ marks the first time, that I've aware of, that werewolves received the same level of laundry list powers that vampires did (and keep in mind that _World of Darkness_ exaggerated this trend by giving vampires arbitrary powers over stone, time, illusion, etc). It's only within the last decade that I've seen this attitude trickle into popular culture depictions of werewolves (e.g. _Teen Wolf_, _The Order_).

Even something as simple as the concept of alpha and beta werewolves can be traced to the 1990s adventure game series _Gabriel Knight_.

But when you go back to pre-Hollywood folklore... there's very little distinction between werewolves, wizards and vampires. It's almost like the modern distinction is an arbitrary invention. Which reminds me of another point...

*Cliques*

Previously I mentioned that the popular set of vampires, werewolves, wizards, ghosts and fairies are recognizable archetypes. I may have lied. What we imagine as vampires and werewolves specifically is much more recent, as they weren't well distinguished prior to the 20th century. This has some ramifications for the design of contemporary fantasy games.

The first generation 1990s+ contemporary fantasy games got a lot of steam from their clique structure. _Nightlife _had two majors factions based on whether they pretended to be human or embraced their monstrosity, and various "races" of monster like vampire, wight, ghost, werewolf, etc. _Nephilim _had five elements and twenty major arcana. _Immortal _had twelve tribes. The clique structure loosened in the second generation and appears largely absent in the third generation, although that may just be due to those games not printing splatbooks like popcorn.

_World of Darkness_ had vampire clans, werewolf tribes, mage traditions, etc. These weren't based on archetypes in fiction or folklore, but seemed to have been largely invented by the developers based on specific inspirations (e.g. each vampire clan is obviously based on a specific vampire story like _Dracula_ for ventrue, _Interview with the Vampire_ for toreador, _Lost Boys_ for brujah, _Near Dark_ for gangrel, _Nosferatu_ for nosferatu, _Vampire's Kiss_ for malkavian, _Necroscope_ for tzimisce, _Lair of the White Worm_ for setite, or _3×3 Eyes_ for salubri). In other words, they're blatantly arbitrary. One critic called them "stereotypes," as opposed to "archetypes." There can easily be a bazillion splats, as B.J. Zanzibar's archive shows.

_Chronicles of Darkness_ tried to replace the previous clique structure with one more evocative of archetypal roles, and made a cleaner distinction between splats chosen by the player and those chosen by their character. The problem is that such archetypes don't actually exist, so the developers were pretty much making up their own archetypes with questionable foundation. This worked for _Changeling: The Lost_ because it drew on humanity's extensive fairy tales across the globe and I imagine pretty much everyone can agree that the wildly diverse fairies of folklore can be placed into roughly six archetypes of "beasts", "fairest", "darklings", "ogres", "wizened" and "elementals". Not so for vampires, werewolves and wizards.

Can any of us describe archetypal roles into which vampires, werewolves and wizards may be uniquely subdivided? I certainly can't. For example, _Chronicles _tried to divide vampires into archetypes of "lord", "savage", "haunt", "succubus" (or "serpent") and "shadow." Would you say that represents the archetypes of vampires in fiction and folklore, or is this a case of _pareidolia _and forcing square pegs into round holes? By contrast, _The Mary Sue_ lists ten archetypes. Trying to divide werewolves into archetypes, as in this essay, similarly leads to a completely different result than what is seen in _Chronicles_. The artifice of the archetype structure becomes increasingly obvious when applied to the following games, and the second edition has largely abandoned it.

Most other contemporary fantasy games don't spend that much effort, or leave it up the the players. I can easily understand why. But if you're building a campaign setting, rather than a generic foundation, it seems inevitable to me that the world building would include cliques once it reaches a certain amount of detail.

My time is running out. I'm signing off right here.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 27, 2019)

> Werewolves' lack of superpowers
> 
> Our monsters traditionally have all sorts of reality warping powers. Wizards can build magic castles like Hogwarts. Ghosts call pull off all the crazy SFX seen in Poltergeist, The Ring, The Shining, The Grudge, Grave Encounters and more. Vampires can control animals, control the weather, levitate, control minds, change shape, etc. Werewolves can turn into wolfish beasts with enhanced physical abilities and... not much else?
> 
> ...




I was just looking at werewolf lore, and the closing paragraph in the section I just quoted isn’t quite...accurate.

While werewolves were indeed associated with other creatures like witches, vampires, and revenants, they weren’t interchangeable.  There are distinctions, especially with the first two.  Those could often assume the form and abilities of werewolves, or even occasionally call on them as allies or thralls.   They were not werewolves in the strictest sense, any more than a D&D spellcaster using spells to do likewise. 

But werewolves _proper_ were not ascribed much in the way of special abilities beyond the shapechange itself and a supernatural resistance to damage.  Some might lead a pack of actual wolves.

Not that it needed much in the way of more powers: an oversized, intelligent wolf (or the modern anthropomorphic wolf-man) you can’t kill without special (expensive) materials or actual (outlawed) magic would be _terrifying _to the most people.  That’s before you add in their contagion aspect.

I think movies like 2002’s _Dog Soldiers_ echo that point.
[video=youtube;E08zwlGeJiA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E08zwlGeJiA[/video]


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## Tony Vargas (Jun 27, 2019)

OK, that's getting pretty constructive.



BoxCrayonTales said:


> While out of the box D&D over covers a specific set of archetypes, there's a bazillion 3pp that hacks the system to make new classes.



 Sure. It's the oldest RPG, and people have been trying to force it to do more since the very beginning - Murlynd, was an old-west wizard, Metamorphosis Alpha was written with D&D-ish rules.  d20 was gasoline on that fire.  But that's like, 45 years of chaos.  The game, itself, if you go pick up 5e off the shelf, really hasn't changed or expanded all that much (to be fair, 5e is a bit of a re-boot).
I skipping tons, I'll just pipe up when I think of something constructive to contribute.



> *Ghosts' incongruous invisibility*
> 
> For whatever reason, ghosts seem to be less popular as PCs compared to vampires and such despite ghost stories making up a much larger volume of history and popular culture.



 Possibly it's because ghosts are, well, dead, not un-dead in a physically active way like Vampires, but dead, sometimes they're depicted as little more than psychic holograms, just re-living some traumatic moment.  If there's a point or character development to the ghost in the ghost story, it's typically laying the ghost to rest, which mean, if it's a PC, you don't get to play it anymore.  That's an issue.

The other thing about ghosts is that our pop culture concept of them is built on a 19th century fad quasi-religion called Theosophy - spiritualism, mediums, spirit photography, ectoplasm - it's not really rooted in ancient beliefs/organized religion or anything like that.  



> Werewolves' lack of superpowers
> Our monsters traditionally have all sorts of reality warping powers. Wizards can build magic castles like Hogwarts. Ghosts call pull off all the crazy SFX ... Vampires can control animals, control the weather, levitate, control minds, change shape, etc. Werewolves can turn into wolfish beasts with enhanced physical abilities and... not much else?



 Yep, and it's oddly nothing much to do with the source material.  In myth/legend, werewolves were sorcerers who gained an ability to shapechange through some magical means (or 'deal with the devil' once Chrisianized).  Vampires were essentially evil spirits that preyed on families, slowly draining one person at a time - a folk explanation of certain diseases, like tuberculosis.  

For whatever reason, pop culture took the Vampire myth and ran with it, making them into these weird super-beings.  When the werewolf hit the silver screen they decided to make it a bite-transmitted curse to be more like the very successful Dracula.  That's probably why WWGS went with the race-apart animist werewolves with gnosis-super-powers, to bring them up to suff relative to Vampires that had gotten the Brahm Stoker, Hollywood, and Anne Rice upgrades.




> But when you go back to pre-Hollywood folklore... there's very little distinction between werewolves, wizards and vampires. It's almost like the modern distinction is an arbitrary invention



Yep. On one level they were all just superstitious explanations of the dangerous world people lived in but didn't really understand.  Disease, in particular.




> There can easily be a bazillion splats, as B.J. Zanzibar's archive shows.



Ooh. I liked that site back in the day.  I think I contributed a few bits of silliness to it. (Blake 1001)




> Can any of us describe archetypal roles into which vampires, werewolves and wizards may be uniquely subdivided?



Like, classical conceptions of them?  Werewolves were mostly, as I said, sorcerers who shapechanged. Vampires were evil spirits of disease, essentially. And wizards were hardly a thing - sorcerers (power from evil spirits), magi, goetio, philosophers, astronomers, herbalists, anyone with a bit of knowledge outside the norm or a penchant for chicanery could spawn a concept of a magic-using individual.  The modern wizard archetype mostly derives from Hermeticism - much effdup by D&D and it's Vancian-memorization use-limited but absurdly-powerful spells.

But, thinking about it, there are iconic examples, that may or may not rise to the level of archetypes.   Carmilla, the needy, manipulative almost-psychic-vampire.  Dracula, the isolated Vampire noble, urbane and creepily sexualized in the Belle Lugosi Hollwood take...  ...and, well, it gets weird after that.  Reluctant Vampires.  Conspiracy Vampires.  Emo Vampires.  Sparkly Vampires ... OK, the shark has been well and truly jumped.

Werewolves:  There's the classic evil-sorcerer werewolf. The Cursed werewolf driven to kill.  And the Controlled Werewolf whose shapechaning can be a gift more than a curse... 
...and then it gets WoD influenced and weird.

Wizards.  There are actually so many, and none of them like the now-dominant-in-RPG-circles, D&D wish-grenade.  /Many/ of them are really about divination, though.  That's what that suffix -mancy actually mean, y'know.  Pyromancers, or instance, don't throw fire around, they stare into fires to divine the future - RL practice.  Necromancers didn't raise the dead, they talked to dead.  &c.  
Some, like Sorcerers, Shamans, witches ("warlocks" arguably not really a thing), Goetio,  and others would be classes as practicing "Thaumaturgy" - miracle-working or magic with practical results.  Then there were philosophers, healers and alchemists who were arguably messing around with real things, rather than magic, just real things they understood very differently than we do, and that people outside their disciplines considered magic.  Like, Archimedes would have been considered a magic-user of sorts in his day.


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## Umbran (Jun 27, 2019)

Sword of Spirit said:


> That's interesting. Given that it seems to be a fairly popular or well-received game, it seems to also be evidence that having a less focused, more "generic" modern fantasy setting can work well and not be bland.
> 
> It makes me want to take a look at it, except for Fate. I just can't handle Fate. Why, oh why, did it have to be Fate?




Why did it have to be Fate?  Because Fate happens to be better at narrative-focused genre emulation than most tactical-task-resolution based systems (like d20, for example) are.

The success of the system is, imho, based on how it manages to produce gameplay that has the drama, pacing, and pulpy goodness of the books.  If you are deeply engaged during play, and the resulting narrative is cool, the fact that the whole setting looks like a messy kitchen sink really doesn't matter.


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## GrahamWills (Jun 27, 2019)

Sword of Spirit said:


> I just can't handle Fate. Why, oh why, did it have to be Fate?




Well, Fate seems very well suited for Urban Fantasy -- if you look at the various settings for Fate an awful lot of them are urban fantasy of some form or another. Dresden files is clearly the most popular, but I'd hazard there are a good dozen others. let me look ...

*NGEN MAPU* -- An urban fantasy setting that merges modern civilization with the South American myths of the Mapuche people

*THE CLOCKWINDERS* -- you will journey across the face of Cadvini, through aether-tained ruins and by barely-functional rail, to restore the clockwork order of the world before it is too late

*ALMBRECHT AFTER DARK* -- An industrial-era setting that mixes conspiracy, politics, labor disputes, and the supernatural

*MINISTRY* -- You are field agents of the Ministry of Rocketry, assigned to London to defend your people against the alien threat

*STRAW BOSS* -- Belief defines reality. Members of the Scholars of the Hieroglyphical Monad know this to be true. Some might call it a cult, but you know everything they teach is real

*GOOD NEIGHBORS* -- In Good Neighbors, players take on two roles: a human who must deal with the politics of this new industry, and a fairy who feels the full spiritual damage of the Industry. Can your humans enact change to make Still Hollow safe again, or will your fairies need to enact their own justice?

*NITRATE CITY* -- a place where elements of Film Noir and classic movie monsters combine with explosive results. It’s a place populated by slick vampire private eyes, clever werewolf gamblers, cigarette smoking mummy fatales and deadly hit men from beneath the darkest waters.


OK, I got half-way through https://www.evilhat.com/home/fate-worlds-and-adventures
The list there shows how suitable Fate is for Urban Fantasy


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## VelvetViolet (Jun 28, 2019)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I was just looking at werewolf lore, and the closing paragraph in the section I just quoted isn’t quite...accurate.
> 
> While werewolves were indeed associated with other creatures like witches, vampires, and revenants, they weren’t interchangeable.  There are distinctions, especially with the first two.  Those could often assume the form and abilities of werewolves, or even occasionally call on them as allies or thralls.   They were not werewolves in the strictest sense, any more than a D&D spellcaster using spells to do likewise.
> 
> ...



In the strictest sense, qualifiers like witch, werewolf, vampire, etc were not species in pre-modern folklore. They were descriptions of capabilities, capabilities that varied wildly.

A witch, at least in the negative connotation, was someone who used magic to harm the community. They could do so in a variety of ways. If they stole the life force of their victims, then they were also vampires. If they assumed the forms of wolves, then they were also werewolves.

A werewolf, quite literally, refers to anyone who assumed the form of a wolf through some means. A werewolf might be a witch who assumes the form of a wolf, or someone cursed by a witch into the form of a wolf. A dead person could even rise from the grave as a werewolf that preyed on the living.

A vampire is generally a subtler predator compared to werewolves and ogres (in the comparative mythology meaning of any man-eating giant). The symptoms of being victimized by a vampire resembled a sickness, rather than being overtly attacked and killed. A vampire might be a witch who drains the life of their victims, while pretending to be normal otherwise. A vampire might be a malevolent ghost that preys on a village, and must be banished by destroying their grave. A vampire might be a revived corpse that pretends to be normal while secretly preying on victims.

Many vicious cannibal monsters called vampires in modern popular culture may be more accurately called ogres.

There wasn't really anything you could call a werewolf "proper." Their capabilities varied by story and there is no default. Generally, willing werewolves had arbitrary capabilities. Unwilling werewolves are the instance I'm aware of in which the werewolf didn't have any powers beyond the change, and even then they still retained their human mind so they would suffer.

I could not find of the sort of "proper" werewolves you claim. Bisclavret was a rare heroic werewolf, who could only change (requiring the removal or wearing of his clothes) and had no special durability. The only instance of durability I could find was an account from a 19th century book claiming that some shape-shifting witches (no specified species) had a "frozen" spell that protected them from harm, which could only be broken by silver or "elder pith." The idea of silver breaking mystical protection appears in other stories unrelated to werewolves.



Tony Vargas said:


> Possibly it's because ghosts are, well, dead, not un-dead in a physically active way like Vampires, but dead, sometimes they're depicted as little more than psychic holograms, just re-living some traumatic moment.  If there's a point or character development to the ghost in the ghost story, it's typically laying the ghost to rest, which mean, if it's a PC, you don't get to play it anymore.  That's an issue.
> 
> The other thing about ghosts is that our pop culture concept of them is built on a 19th century fad quasi-religion called Theosophy - spiritualism, mediums, spirit photography, ectoplasm - it's not really rooted in ancient beliefs/organized religion or anything like that.



Popular culture has a few stories in which ghosts play a larger role than merely being laid to rest, like being roommates, paranormal investigators or outright superheroes. _Being Human_ and _Insidious _are some examples I'm aware of. Although there seems to be a general shortage of long-running stories with ghost protagonists.




Tony Vargas said:


> Yep, and it's oddly nothing much to do with the source material. In myth/legend, werewolves were sorcerers who gained an ability to shapechange through some magical means (or 'deal with the devil' once Chrisianized). Vampires were essentially evil spirits that preyed on families, slowly draining one person at a time - a folk explanation of certain diseases, like tuberculosis.
> 
> For whatever reason, pop culture took the Vampire myth and ran with it, making them into these weird super-beings. When the werewolf hit the silver screen they decided to make it a bite-transmitted curse to be more like the very successful Dracula. That's probably why WWGS went with the race-apart animist werewolves with gnosis-super-powers, to bring them up to suff relative to Vampires that had gotten the Brahm Stoker, Hollywood, and Anne Rice upgrades.



Distinguishing werewolves from wizards will always be difficult if you're trying to boost werewolves in terms of power. The fixation on wolves in particular is something I feel needlessly limits the concept. Folklore is full of were-whatevers.

I'm currently writing a treatment of werewolves for D&D, but it can be applied here. Throughout its various editions, D&D has introduced a few different forms of lycanthropy. In 2e, _Van Richten's Guide_ codified the lycanthropy presented in the rules into heritable lycanthropy, pathologic lycanthropy and maledictive lycanthropy. Ravenloft had a running theme that the monsters didn't have uniform traits to make hunting them less repetitive for players, so in the case of lycanthropes that meant that their creation, their transformation triggers and their vulnerabilities could be quite variable.

Anyway, pathologic lycanthropy was the recognizable form you see all the time in horror movies. Hapless victim is bitten, turns into monster, wakes up without any memory of their actions. Heritable lycanthropy seems to be a variation: heritable lycanthropes carried pathologic lycanthropy but had a hereditary trait that allowed them to control their transformations and retain their memory while transformed. The much rarer maledictive lycanthropy was the result of a curse. Some curses could spread similarly to pathologic lycanthropy. Pathologic and maledictive lycanthropy were potentially curable, but heritable lycanthropy was not.

Subsequent editions introduced various wrinkles. In 3e, the distinction between the different forms of lycanthropy was condensed into natural lycanthropes and afflicted lycanthropes. Natural lycanthropes could inflict the curse of lycanthropy on others to create afflicted lycanthropes, but afflicted lycanthropes could not do the same. Lycanthropy could no longer spread like a contagious disease a la horror movies. I'm not sure why this change was made and I won't hazard a guess, but I think it bears a close resemblance to the concept of alpha and beta werewolves (loosely similar to the concept of a master vampire and servant vampires) present in some werewolf fiction like _Gabriel Knight_, _Big Wolf on Campus_, _Nature of the Beast_ and _Teen Wolf_ (the series). On the same note, starting in this edition vampires were divided into vampires and vampire spawn; the latter could not spread their condition either.

In 4e, lycanthropy was purely hereditary and could not be spread like a disease. Even so, lycanthropes still carried other diseases like filth fever or moon madness.

In 5e, lycanthropy appears to be purely pathological. Lycanthropes constantly struggle against the urges imposed by their affliction, represented by alignment. The only distinction for heritable lycanthropes is that it is harder for them to be cured.

That's pretty much the extent of diversity in terms of pathological lycanthropy. A lot of effort went into coming up with variations on the same theme, so why not give them other superpowers like vampires get? Why couldn't werewolves fly, manipulate minds, control the weather or any of the other stuff ascribed to vampires? Why do authors seem so hesitant to ascribe new superpowers to werewolves?

What I'd most like to see is a pitch that combines at least the same level of diversity as seen in _Dresden Files_ with the same level of laundry list powers as seen in _World of Darkness_. Maybe with heavy influence from _Exalted_'s Lunars, too. Might have to pitch it myself later when I have more time to type.



Tony Vargas said:


> Wizards.  There are actually so many, and none of them like the now-dominant-in-RPG-circles, D&D wish-grenade.  /Many/ of them are really about divination, though.  That's what that suffix -mancy actually mean, y'know.  Pyromancers, or instance, don't throw fire around, they stare into fires to divine the future - RL practice.  Necromancers didn't raise the dead, they talked to dead.  &c.
> Some, like Sorcerers, Shamans, witches ("warlocks" arguably not really a thing), Goetio,  and others would be classes as practicing "Thaumaturgy" - miracle-working or magic with practical results.  Then there were philosophers, healers and alchemists who were arguably messing around with real things, rather than magic, just real things they understood very differently than we do, and that people outside their disciplines considered magic.  Like, Archimedes would have been considered a magic-user of sorts in his day.



This is tangential, but I wanted to bring back that sort of atmosphere to the fantasy genre. Rather than treating magic like some weird super power apart from nature, I always thought it would make for a great setting to treat magic as the fantasy equivalent of science and technology. Much like what Tolkien did, since he drew from pre-modern conceptions of magic. His world didn't have magic as we conceive it, it had the seen and the unseen. The "lore" studied by his ring-makers, necromancers, wizards and so forth was a science, the same science that Illuvatar used to create the world. Although the use of the term "science" might give the wrong impression, since Tolkien's world conceived of the advancements of science and the advancements of progress as being different things. It's very complicated if you aren't used to it.


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## Tony Vargas (Jun 28, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> This is tangential, but I wanted to bring back that sort of atmosphere to the fantasy genre. Rather than treating magic like some weird super power apart from nature, I always thought it would make for a great setting to treat magic as the fantasy equivalent of science and technology. ... Although the use of the term "science" might give the wrong impression...



"Knowledge," "Wisdom" or "Natural Philosophy" or, well, 'magic,' might be reasonable alternatives to 'science' in that context, to get away from the modern association with the scientific method and with technology.


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## 5ekyu (Jun 28, 2019)

If I were looking to publish a setting, modern would be wat down the lists. In today's climate, any references to real world topics is a bit of a landmine. On the other hand, if you go the DC "star city, central city" renames you wind up with a touch of hokey.

So, by the time you go far enough into "it's not here" you are going as much work as a new era would need.


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## aramis erak (Jun 28, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> Saturn bases aren’t bad. Where I get confused is why there’s a need to go so far beyond urban fantasy. Scifi and cyberpunk are present from the start.




WoD had an Cyberpunk element from Werewolf on... The Black Spiral Dancers represent embracing the new corporate paradigm. 

It was covert in Vampire... the extra few years and the rise of portable computing made Mage's Technocracy seem like the perfect reason for Mages to be hunted by Vampires, Werewolves (saving the BSD), and Fae.

WoD sets up each of the supernatural types to be opposed to each of the other groups, and to factions within themselves. Combined campaigns can find a common enemy, while mono-type campaigns can find a common enemy within type...

As a game artifice, it's brilliant.
The game mechanics are decent, but simple.
The archetypes are also plenty variable, providing for more playability.

In short, it did like D&D: simple to play, plenty of support and plenty of conflict, in a kitchen sink crapsack world.

It's fun to play, but not great to read stories in.


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## Fenris-77 (Jun 28, 2019)

I know it's been mentioned in this thread, but allow me another hand wave very much in favor of _Urban Shadows_. It's really good.


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## aramis erak (Jun 29, 2019)

Fenris-77 said:


> Mage is bonkers. I don't hate the basic system though. That said, Ars Magica is probably a better model for Urban fantasy with powerful mages, despite the very medieval setting. I don't think *I'd* necessarily do all that conversion, but if someone wanted to use that WoD mechanics the fluff can always be changed.  If you started with just _Hunter_ and worked out it might not be so bad, then you flavor the vamps, wolves and magi any way you wanted.
> 
> It's probably easier to just use Fate or something.



up through 3rd edition Ars Magica, you didn't see wizards frequenting the cities... becuase cities often had low to mid level Reason Regio... which, even more than religious regio, interferes with casting severely.

One of the changes in AM 4 was deletion of the Reason Regio, and the cold war between science and magic.


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## aramis erak (Jun 29, 2019)

Sword of Spirit said:


> That's interesting. Given that it seems to be a fairly popular or well-received game, it seems to also be evidence that having a less focused, more "generic" modern fantasy setting can work well and not be bland.
> 
> It makes me want to take a look at it, except for Fate. I just can't handle Fate. Why, oh why, did it have to be Fate?




Because the guys writing it liked FATE, and showed Jim Butcher that it could and would handle the disparate power levels just fine. 

And, having played the FATE version (not the Accelerated version), it was pretty well done... but my White Court Neonate feeding on Obsession (and working at a game store) was a bit OP... not because he was mechanically stronger, but because I knew the system and was able to work FATE _hard_... and no one else in the group was. Being able to inflict emotions made me able to trigger the rage-monster.


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## Fenris-77 (Jun 29, 2019)

This sounds a little ponzi, but when people actually buy into the fate concept, and build characters and take aspects the way the game is designed, it's fabulous. Sadly, the game almost punishes people who aren't going to buy all the way in. It sucks if people aren't building characters and picking aspects in the spirit of the thing. I suspect that a lot of the negative experiences with Fate stem from a lack of buy in. And I say this as a guy who usually likes the crunchiest of crunch. I'm a min-maxing Games Workshop power gamer from back in the day. I'm all about the math and the efficiency and some goddamn winning. I'm talking high level tournament success over a long period. Power. Gaming. Rules. I like winning a lot. And I still think Fate is effing awesome.


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## aramis erak (Jun 30, 2019)

Yeah, FATE does require buy in to the Aspect mechanics. But it's not a big issue if everyone is the same approach to them (either all buy-in, or none). If none buy in, it's just Fudge.

The worst case: Some of the players buy in, but the GM doesn't... They can't get the compels to power their stunts...


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## Fenris-77 (Jul 1, 2019)

If there's no GM buy in I question the whole endeavor. It's never going to work out.


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## Umbran (Jul 1, 2019)

aramis erak said:


> but my White Court Neonate feeding on Obsession (and working at a game store) was a bit OP... not because he was mechanically stronger, but because I knew the system and was able to work FATE _hard_... and no one else in the group was.




Then it wasn't the _character_ that was the issue.  You had system mastery, the others didn't.  If you didn't choose to correct for that, it isn't the character that's OP.


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## Fenris-77 (Jul 1, 2019)

Being the one or one of maybe two players in a group that actually knows how make a game tick can be awkward for everyone.


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## aramis erak (Jul 1, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Then it wasn't the _character_ that was the issue.  You had system mastery, the others didn't.  If you didn't choose to correct for that, it isn't the character that's OP.




No, the character was also OP, in terms of being considerably easier to refresh than the others, because of how they set up the White Court mechanically. I chose it _because it was clearly OP as written._ Then add the system mastery...


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## VelvetViolet (Jul 2, 2019)

I wanted to discuss werewolves again.

Coolidge’s 2006 essay on archetypes of lycanthropy lists medieval, monstrous (cursed), monstrous (diabolic), heroic and sympathetic as those relevant to contemporary fantasy fiction (fantasy lycanthropes are a miscellaneous addition). Although new fiction has come out in the intervening years, these archetypes seem to remain just as relevant and largely unchanged. All the werewolves I’ve seen in roleplaying games can be described by these archetypes, either singly or in combination.

In terms of designing the nitty gritty, _GURPS Shapeshifters_ is extremely helpful. I’m just going to describe some broad world building here drawing on precedents in folklore and games.

A recurring concept of lycanthropes in games like _World of Darkness_, _The Everlasting_, _WitchCraft_, _Dresden Files_ or _Los Cazados_ is animistic. They are often the result of spiritual invocation or outright possession. This goes back to the folklore origins of lycanthropes, which generally involved invoking deities (if good) or demons (if evil) to induce transformation. An old concept, unknown in modern fiction, is that the transformation was a form of astral projection rather than physical. 

Although lycanthropes in folklore are typically evil (which may be attributed to Christianization of pagan beliefs that previously depicted both good and evil lycanthropes), there are a few surviving stories of good lycanthropes like the Italian “hounds of God” or the Slavic “krsnik.” They fight demons, witches, vampires and so forth. Despite being a ready premise for a superhero, they’re bizarrely rare in modern fiction.

Pathologic lycanthropy was invented by Hollywood and, as many detractors in fantasy fiction love to point out, this would generally result in werewolf epidemics. Indeed, this was precisely the danger of folkloric vampires: if you didn’t re-kill them, then the undead would spread as a plague. However, there are plenty of pre-modern stories where lycanthropy is spread to humans from a kind of cursed reservoir. Such reservoirs include flowers, water, wolves, the Moon, cannibalism, and blasphemy. Although intentional werewolf curses like that placed by witches or saints typically left the victim’s mind intact so they could suffer through the life of a wolf, those from reservoirs seemed unpredictable. You might have control over the transformation, or you might turn into a vicious beast without your knowledge, and that’s assuming you know you cursed yourself.

In terms of character options for a specific setting (out of many potential settings), I can imagine a few examples drawing on Coolidge’s archetypes. The occult basis for this form of lycanthropy would be an animal spirit, either possessing the werewolf himself, bound into a magic token like a selkie or swarm maiden, or the token itself is symbiotic a la _Witchblade _or _Guyver_. Possession is broadly the result of a pact, blessing, curse, or heredity. Aside from how one becomes a lycanthrope and what benefits and drawbacks it provides; a key aspect of world building would be how lycanthropes treat their condition and how they build their secret societies.

To name a few examples from media:


The hereditary werewolves of Lupine Ridge kept to themselves, aside from a cult run by one of their number who converted some muggles into subservient “betas.”
The Knights of St. Christopher draw their lycanthropy from magical sentient wolfskins fused to their bodies, passed down across wearers. They hunt witches.
The werewolves of Stonehaven make it their business to keep the existence of werewolves a secret from muggles and to put down any werewolves who make a nuisance of themselves.
A group of werewolves in California are attracted to evil people and driven to destroy them. Because “werewolf” is apparently not cool enough, they call themselves “morphenkinder" and initiation "chrism."
The government maintains a secret task force for investigating werewolf activity, with a few werewolves on the payroll. Less scrupulous government organizations want to weaponize werewolves.

I don't have a lot of steam right now so I'm going to leave off right here.


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## Jer (Jul 2, 2019)

aramis erak said:


> No, the character was also OP, in terms of being considerably easier to refresh than the others, because of how they set up the White Court mechanically. I chose it _because it was clearly OP as written._ Then add the system mastery...




If I were your GM I would have had White Court vamps just dripping with mockery every time you showed up anywhere they could remotely be.

You're one of the cool, beautiful psychic vampires and you choose to own a game store?  And feed off people showing up to buy Magic cards every week?  Sure you might have power, but at what cost?  AT WHAT COST???  Even the guys feeding off the strung out junkies who are borderline OD-ing on meth would sneer at your choices


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## Fenris-77 (Jul 2, 2019)

There is an awful lot of suppressed rage and frustration swirling around most game stores. Sounds tasty to me.


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## VelvetViolet (Jul 2, 2019)

​To continue where I left off discussing werewolves...*

Werewolf mythology*
The reason why werewolves are the most popular shapeshifters, within Western (i.e. European descended) popular culture, is simple. Wolves, along with bears, are among the few predatory European megafauna that weren’t wiped out by humans ten thousand years ago. Wolves were the most likely to encounter humans, typically by attacking livestock, so more stories were told about them. As these encounters were unpleasant, the stories about wolves were likewise typically unpleasant and especially when it came to shapeshifting wolves.

Since bears are omnivorous and less likely to come into conflict with humans, the stories of bear shape shifters are generally far more positive. A recurring motif in European, Asian and Native American folktales is the “bear’s son cycle,” in which a hero has a shapeshifting bear as one of his ancestors and inherits its strength to help his people. _Beowulf _is a famous example.

When you delve into the stories of African, Asian and Native American cultures, where wolves are far less dominant in the landscape, the stories of shapeshifters are more diverse. Whatever the local predatory megafauna is, the stories of shapeshifters will draw from it. For example, Africa has stories about shapeshifting lions and hyenas, the Americas have stories about shapeshifting jaguars and pumas, and Asia has stories of shapeshifting tigers.

The moon and silver commonly feature in modern werewolf fiction as a result of Hollywood influence. In folklore, the moon was rarely associated with werewolves except for a few means of becoming a werewolf such as being conceived under a new moon or sleeping under a certain full moon. Silver has been associated with the moon since ancient times in multiple cultures including the Incas, Greeks, Mesopotamians and alchemists. The concept of silver bullets predates Hollywood by centuries. The association, though novel, has a logical progression.

There’s a ton of symbolism related to wolves in European mythology too. The portentous black dogs of the British Isles, the underworld guardians like Cerberus and Garmr, and hunters like the Cŵn Annwn and Laelaps.

If lycanthropes existed, then I imagine they would have their own creation myths. European werewolves worshiping a moon god makes a fair amount of sense.

The Greek goddess Artemis and her twin Apollo seem tailor-made for worship by werewolves. Their mother Leto was linked with wolves and named the land of Lycia in honor of wolves that befriended her. One of Apollo’s children was named Lycomedes. Both names derive from _lykos_ meaning “wolf.”

Greece has an old tradition of ghostly vampiric werewolf-like creatures called _vrykolakas_. Among other descriptions, they would roam battlefields in the form of hyenas to prey on dying soldiers. Normal people could become malevolent ghosts, but those arisen from werewolves were apparently even worse.

The mythical founders of Rome (famous for openly copying Greek culture), Romulus and Remus, were supposedly raised by wolves. The festival of Lupercalia takes its name from wolves in relation to this.

The backstory writes itself as far as Greco-Roman werewolves are concerned.

(The _Chronicles of Darkness_ books _Blasphemies_ and _Spirit Slayers_ cover similar ground, but still married to the premise of werewolves policing an inherently malevolent spirit world.)


*Animism*
Animism is a simple concept: everything has a soul. It is believed to be the first religion and provides the underpinnings of all subsequent religion. It is extremely opaque to people who grew up under the Christian tradition and as such it tends to be wildly misinterpreted in Western media.

For example, the concept of a “spirit world” as depicted in _World of Darkness_ does not exist in real animistic belief systems. Another example, the use of the word “spirit” to describe animistic beliefs can give inaccurate connotations of intangibility. As plenty of so-called spirits are quite physical in nature, I prefer less nebulous terms like “god” and “demon.”

The foundation of animism is “magical thinking,” or the belief that your thoughts can alter reality. For example, you wish someone had bad luck and then they do so you believe you caused it; this is a universal concept often called the “evil eye.” Spoiler alert: this is the titular secret in that self-help book _The Secret_. Since inanimate objects and natural phenomena can think under animism, it follows that they too alter reality in that way. Magical thinking, as the name implies, is the basis of magic.

An example of an animistic belief system that might be more familiar to Western readers would be Greek mythology. It had a plethora of gods that presided over natural phenomena like the satyrs and nymphs. When Europe was Christianized, the gods of the prior animistic religions became the fairies of fairytales when they weren’t demonized.

Modern paganism is another example of animism. As is the psychological tendency for humans to anthropomorphize inanimate objects and natural phenomena, which probably led to animistic religions in the first place. When you are talking to your car and gendering it, that is animism. When you believe that inanimate objects have power over reality, like lucky charms, that is animism.

The eclectic religion of modern Shinto is another example, as it may be found readily in Japanese media like anime and manga that is often exported to the West. _Princess Mononoke_ and _Spirited Away_ are good examples. Another example that hits closer to home: when Japanese authors write fantasy fiction based on _Dungeons & Dragons_ or its derivatives, metaphysical concepts are typically reinterpreted through a Shinto lens. For example, the concept of _ki_ or the applied manipulation of one's own life force may be employed to explain how various supernatural phenomena occur. The closest Western equivalent are the occult concepts of vitalism, mesmerism, orgones and so forth.


Signing off again...


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## Tony Vargas (Jul 2, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> *Animism*
> Animism is a simple concept: everything has a soul. It is believed to be the first religion and provides the underpinnings of all subsequent religion.



Interestingly, it's also a stage in childhood development, or at least according to some theory that was explained to me many years ago... kids go through a phase where they experience empathy for inanimate objects, things like that.  

Maybe we're wired, as social creatures, to interact with eachother, and that wiring can color how we view the rest of the world?



> Modern paganism is another example of animism. As is the psychological tendency for humans to anthropomorphize inanimate objects and natural phenomena, which probably led to animistic religions in the first place. When you are talking to your car and gendering it, that is animism. When you believe that inanimate objects have power over reality, like lucky charms, that is animism.



OK, yeah, you've heard that too. 




> It is extremely opaque to people who grew up under the Christian tradition and as such it tends to be wildly misinterpreted in Western media.
> For example, the concept of a “spirit world” as depicted in _World of Darkness_ does not exist in real animistic belief systems.



Other worlds are common in a lot of mythologies, though, sometimes conceived of as being somewhere physical, like under the ground or in the sky, other times as simply a way of looking at the same world...

… the modern pop-culture sense is heavily influenced by Theosophy, which posited levels of existence that were concomitant, but invisible to eachother, as an alternative to the common Christian concept of a heaven and hell remote from the physical world... and, perhaps ironically, from scientific and mathematical concepts, like Flatland, and quantum physics.



> Another example, the use of the word “spirit” to describe animistic beliefs can give inaccurate connotations of intangibility. As plenty of so-called spirits are quite physical in nature, I prefer less nebulous terms like “god” and “demon.”



Those seem worse.

An animist and a deist may try to understand eachother, and the deist may leave with the impression that the animist reveres 'Bear,' who is a deity with dominion over bears, and who exists on some spirit plane.  while the animist will try to explain that, no: 
"Bear is Bear and I was just talking to Bear the other day, and Bear thinks deists are jerks, and you should be careful in the woods, because Bear is out walking today."  
"Well, sure there might be bears out in the woods, but do they all report to your Bear-god via telepathy or something?  Has he issued a fatwa against me?"  
"All bears /are/ Bear."


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## VelvetViolet (Jul 3, 2019)

Tony Vargas said:


> Other worlds are common in a lot of mythologies, though, sometimes conceived of as being somewhere physical, like under the ground or in the sky, other times as simply a way of looking at the same world...
> 
> … the modern pop-culture sense is heavily influenced by Theosophy, which posited levels of existence that were concomitant, but invisible to eachother, as an alternative to the common Christian concept of a heaven and hell remote from the physical world... and, perhaps ironically, from scientific and mathematical concepts, like Flatland, and quantum physics.



Yes. The Otherworld, Underworld, Overworld, etc is not the same as the "spirit world" as depicted in, say, _Avatar: The Last Airbender_. They have their own gods distinct from those of the Middleworld.



Tony Vargas said:


> An animist and a deist may try to understand eachother, and the deist may leave with the impression that the animist reveres 'Bear,' who is a deity with dominion over bears, and who exists on some spirit plane.  while the animist will try to explain that, no:
> "Bear is Bear and I was just talking to Bear the other day, and Bear thinks deists are jerks, and you should be careful in the woods, because Bear is out walking today."
> "Well, sure there might be bears out in the woods, but do they all report to your Bear-god via telepathy or something?  Has he issued a fatwa against me?"
> "All bears /are/ Bear."



Yes. Greek mythology is a great bridge to these sorts of concepts. If you want to go all obsolete occult science, then you could invoke concepts like "morphic fields" to substitute for platonic ideals.


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## Umbran (Jul 3, 2019)

BoxCrayonTales said:


> ​
> The foundation of animism is “magical thinking,” or the belief that your thoughts can alter reality.




Animism is the idea that material phenomena have agency.  Your thoughts don't directly alter reality when reality has a mind of its own. 

Animism is more typified by... being able to convince the spirits to act upon your behalf or to leave you alone.  It less about exerting your will upon the world, or that certain actions or thoughts have results with no clear mode of action - it is more about coming to an agreement (via negotiation, flattery, or intimidation) with particular parts of the world.  

Not that animism is just one thing, mind you.  But if we have to make generalizations.


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## aramis erak (Jul 4, 2019)

Jer said:


> If I were your GM I would have had White Court vamps just dripping with mockery every time you showed up anywhere they could remotely be.
> 
> You're one of the cool, beautiful psychic vampires and you choose to own a game store?  And feed off people showing up to buy Magic cards every week?  Sure you might have power, but at what cost?  AT WHAT COST???  Even the guys feeding off the strung out junkies who are borderline OD-ing on meth would sneer at your choices




Not even owner. Just manager.



Fenris-77 said:


> There is an awful lot of suppressed rage and frustration swirling around most game stores. Sounds tasty to me.




Not just a game store, a Games Workshop Store. Where obsessed fanboys come to be bled of their money.


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