Troll Lord Games

Now I understand most of us will in all likelihood say 'fantasy' but I'm hoping for some more depth. So here goes...

I favour settings that have some basis in reality. My campaign world is Hrn by Columbia Games which has a lot of pseudo-historical basis to it. Feudalism, subinfeudation, rationales for deities, magic and so on. I'm not a particular fan of high fantasy and tend towards magic-poor worlds rather than magic-rich. I don't like mixing the eras too much, so no gunpowder and machinery in my world thank you very much. The powerful creatures are very rare, if not unique, and resurrection is almost impossible to achieve.

Anyone else? Anybody favour one thing over another?
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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

- Benjamin Franklin

I'm with you on this. I would really like a sort of post holocaust gritty fantasy setting (that more or less describes my homebrew) but Talislanta is just too much, for instance. Sometimes it reminds me of the Wizard of Oz. In general I prefer settings like Hyboria or Tekumel. Or settings with even less in the way of 'fantastic' trappings.

Pulp horror, where players (not their characters, per se) are frightened and worried. No setting does it perfectly, nor does any game (Call of Cthulhu tries, but its not the flavor I like) so I make it up as I game.

My campaign setting is a wierd mix of fantasy and sci fi. Realism is entirely in the context of the setting. There is a certain logic to everything, if one is prepaired to accept a few basic premise of the 'history'.

Magic and science tend to be more of a 'point of view' than separate areas.
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Peter Bradley

I steal stuff from Harn all the time. Good stuff, lots of excellent fan generated stuff.

Fantasy is my favorite, with sci-fi a close second. I also like the Vampire Hunter series until "Narcissus in Chains", and I also read some romance novels that my wife likes by Christine Feehan and Lucy Liu, which are the "Dark" and "Crimson" series. I also like JD Robbs(?) "In Death" series, which are all about fantasy and sci-fi, just what if real world fantasy. Plus I read my wifes books, only one of which is in print. She is currently shopping for a new publisher though.

Romance? What about the "???", well I skip that, except for the talking, for some reason they put important talking in with the "???". Sometimes. Often enough that I skim it to be sure I read important stuff.

As to what "magic level" do I run my games? C&C level. I don't cut back on anything, randomly roll the treasure and they get what they get, etc...

I'm a big fan of H P Lovecraft, but less so of his Cthulhu stuff. That man was a genius. If you really want to be frightened, read some of his stuff - like 'Rats in the Walls' and 'The Sinister Case of Charles Dexter Ward'. Edgar Allen Poe's good too, 'Once upon a midnight dreary, as I pondered weak and weary...'.

I agree though, it's too difficult to build the suspense in Cthulhu, especially when you know that the monsters are unbeatable. Yes, I'm a fan of horror too - proper horror though, not this gore-fest nonsense we seem to have nowadays. As H P Lovecraft said, 'the worst fear is the fear of the unknown'.
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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

- Benjamin Franklin

I had an imp familiar for a necromancer character in D&D once; he'd assume the shape of a raven and he'd keep saying 'Nevermore'.
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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

- Benjamin Franklin

Speaking of Charles Dexter Ward, did you see the movie based on the story? The best Lovecraft movie adaptation I've seen. 'The Resurrected'.

Yeah fantasy set in a pseudo medieval/renaissance/dark ages/viking mixed world with parts having a Ravenloft feel and perhaps some WFRP Old World bits as well. Oh, I'm also still trying to insert a Diablo adventure somewhere for my nephews.

Aihrde and Greyhawk or a hydrid seem very accomodating to this end, and that's my campaign world!
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Count Rhuveinus - Lejendary Keeper of Castle Franqueforte

"Enjoy a 'world' where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!" ~ Gary Gygax

"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes:" - Macbeth

I actually like Cyberpunk more than fantasy. But fantasy is easier to run.
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It really depends on my mood on what I favor during that week. It changes all the time.

Sci-Fi (in a hearbeat).

And when you ask for specifics there (in terms of gaming), the MegaTraveller universe is my favorite of them all, followed by everything else.

I do enjoy fantasy too, but dammit, "Staship Troopers" was one of the first books I ever bought with my own money, and one of the first memories I ever had was of a Star Trek episode.

I gots to keep it real, yo.[/i]

It's a pretty close call for me but I think fantasy edges out cyberpunk by a little bit.

In fantasy, I prefer "classical" elements. Fairies who are more likely to be a bit bloodthirsty or deadly as opposed to flighty hippies. Elves who are distant and fey, forgotten gods of dark forests, etc.

In the cyberpunk genre, I'd have to say Shadowrun sums up what I love. Cyberpunk and fantasy mixed. Oh yeah, that's the stuff.

I also like post-apocalyptic, multi-genre game settings, like Gamma World (sci-fi elements, but fantasy as well) and RIFTS (like the world, but not the mechanics), The End (neat psycho-theological spins), TORG (neat cross-overs) and the Worlds of Wonder box set by Chaosium (simple, and has supers, fantasy, and sci-fi all in one.) Unfortunately, I tend to have to take multiple games and throw them together to get what I'm after. Maybe I just hjave specific tastes which are not "mainstream."

Danger wrote:
Sci-Fi (in a hearbeat).

And when you ask for specifics there (in terms of gaming), the MegaTraveller universe is my favorite of them all, followed by everything else.

I do enjoy fantasy too, but dammit, "Staship Troopers" was one of the first books I ever bought with my own money, and one of the first memories I ever had was of a Star Trek episode.

I gots to keep it real, yo.[/i]

I'm with you on MT. I use some of the classic, but it is still MegaT!

I actally like realistic settings as well. My current game is set in a world I made called Malbatil. It's based on the Thirty Years' War.

I'm currently working on a wiki for it, but I don't have much ion the full version yet. There's a tiddlywiki version here.

Also, when playing fantasy...

If it's epic fantasy I'm looking for? Dragonlance all the way.

The problem with cyberpunk is that everything that was cyberpunk in the 80's we actually have now...

even the "rigger" technology, given that it's not as advanced but it isnt so far fetched anymore.

so that kinda kills part of the cyberpunk allure for me
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Well, the whole wireless world of SR4 is still kinda neat. Plus, add in the orcs, trolls and other neatness of Shadowrun and you can have a good time blowing shit up all over Seattle.

Oh, and like I mentioned earlier in the thread, for me Shadowrun is great because it combines fantasy and cyberpunk. I can run a high-tech commando raid on a corporate target or do an urban dungeon crawl into the lair of an orcish street gang.

Hooray!

My favorite genre, by far, is Cyberpunk. I've always loved the classic worlds of cyberpunk, and that all began with Bladerunner (for me). As it's been said before, classic fantasy has always been easier to run and grabbed to most players.

I do love both fantasy and CP, but I've never fully liked Shadowrun. This might be because I just don't like the system mechanic at all (and yes I currently play SR4, and while better, it still sucks IMO).

I have yet to find the perfect system to play a CP game in (although I do think CP2020 is the best so far, and honestly I like d20 Modern for CP), the search will continue.

..................................................Omote

FPQ
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Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

Omote wrote:
I do love both fantasy and CP, but I've never fully liked Shadowrun. This might be because I just don't like the system mechanic at all (and yes I currently play SR4, and while better, it still sucks IMO).

I wont argue that the SR mechanics are for everybody. I got into the setting enough that I overlooked the rules problems in ealier editions. Now that I've moved to SR4, the improvement is enough that it makes it that much sweeter to me after all those years of much clunkier rules.

I love the post apocalyptic setting of Rifts too, I just have a love/hate feeling on the rules. Sometimes they don't bother me, sometimes they piss me off to no end. It is sad too, because it is one of the coolest concepts ever. Hell, the Rifts Chaos Earth concept is awesome! PLaying in a campaign as the Rifts are just beginning and the whole world is going to shit? Kick ass! Just needs a better system.

I do still play it though....
I'm a junkie.

DangerDwarf wrote:
It's a pretty close call for me but I think fantasy edges out cyberpunk by a little bit.

In fantasy, I prefer "classical" elements. Fairies who are more likely to be a bit bloodthirsty or deadly as opposed to flighty hippies. Elves who are distant and fey, forgotten gods of dark forests, etc.

In the cyberpunk genre, I'd have to say Shadowrun sums up what I love. Cyberpunk and fantasy mixed. Oh yeah, that's the stuff.

This man and I share the same brain.

Ink
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C&C: Blissfully devoid of gestalt neko-hin rogue/fighter/mages!!

I like pretty basic fantasy, not overdone with magic. I like pointy eared,tree hugging elves: grumpy, axe swinging dwarves; fat, fur footed halflings; big, nasty dragons; ugly, mean goblins and orcs, etc. Anything that stretches things too far from the norm is not for me.
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For me, the definitive game for the cyberpunk genre is the black box Cyberpunk game, though one must use the Friday Night Firefight booklet to add that level of depth and "oh crap, don't get into a gun battle, ever!" thing. Otherwise, I have to say, I really like the Shadowrun 1st edition rules, much more than the later incarnations... just something wickedly neat about a laser that does 12S5 damage!

And on the cyberpunk/Shadowrun string of things. I'll be GM'ing On the Run in our SR4 session tonight. Looks ot be a fairly solid module.

Last night we made up the charatcers and discussed a few things. Tonight, game on!

RIFTS is good stuff. Lots of imagination and good roleplaying can be had in a setting like that. *2thumbs up*

CHAOS EARTH is a tough game to GM. Actually playing through "Armageddon" is neat for a few games, possibly a 1 or 2-shot game but I don;t think I like it as a campaign game. I've played CE a few times and each time the GM, at least IMO, failed to elaborate on the end of the world theme which is important to CE. If you don't that tone of the game right, the game turns into a low-powered RIFTS game.

Regardless, lots of potential in CE.

...................................................Omote

FPQ
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> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

I can definately see what you are talking about in CE games. I've only run it once and it was a mini campaign that lasted 6 sessions. It worked great for those sessions, and I probably could have continued it further with no problem, but it took some carfeul planning and set up to make it work. Then again, we usually only do mini-rfits campaigns because the rules irritate us much longer then that.

I started the campaign the day before the world went to hell. Through the course of the sessions they had established a base of operations, began evacuating civilians from the surrounding areas there and had to dea with natural disasters and a host of other problems.

We might go back to that campaign in the futute, I've got some plans for it. Having the return of magic be the concept for mini-campaign 2. All the work they did in the 1st six sessions be threatened from within as mania begins to rise over kids gaining magical abilities and internal strife and distrust threatening to tear appart what they built.

Then add a neearby demon cult on top of that.

I think my personal preference is modern military style games. I really love running a good small scale tactical engagement. I used to really love Twilight 2000 but then switched to D20 Modern for my military gaming, but now Im looking at Savage Worlds. The complicated rules of D20 are slowing the games down. We havent played a lot of non fantasy RPGs lately anyway. We are pretty much set on C&C and WFRP 2 at this time, which suits me fine.

I'm actually getting into the Axis and Allies miniatures warfare. Not horribly realistic, even though there are on-line alternative rules being made up, but it is fun, and the scenario size I like plays out quick.