What setting would be best for an RPG?

What new setting would be best for an RPG

  • Stormlight

    Votes: 10 13.5%
  • The Chronicles of Narnia

    Votes: 2 2.7%
  • Harry Potter

    Votes: 4 5.4%
  • The Dark Tower

    Votes: 4 5.4%
  • Avatar

    Votes: 3 4.1%
  • Mad Max

    Votes: 8 10.8%
  • The Matrix

    Votes: 2 2.7%
  • Riftwar

    Votes: 14 18.9%
  • Stranger Things

    Votes: 3 4.1%
  • Something else

    Votes: 24 32.4%

  • Total voters
    74
I voted Riftwar: I loved the original and Empire trilogy, though the later ones are still in the backlog (haven't read anything past "Exile's Return"). I never got around to play BaK, and it looks way too aged now for me to start on it at this point, so I would welcome a new game in the setting -- that, or I'd take a BaK remake too! :)

I'll pick the "something else" option, the fantastic Babylon Five universe. We don't have enough future/space-faring games, and this setting is so incredibly rich, I'm amazed someone hasn't done it already. This is something I'd through money at just to reward the attempt!!! (assuming it wasn't done by some laughable company/persons, ie, Electronic Arts, Lucas, etc).

Couldn't agree more. Babylon 5 would be an awesome setting to explore.
 
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If you're talking about Earthsea, Le Guin emphatically did not write the TV adaptations. She hated them.

Earthsea would be an interesting and different setting if you could get the magic system right, but I think that would be hard to pull off -- the whole idea is that knowing the "true names" of things or people allows you to control them. Once you know the true name of a dragon there's no "casts per day" on the use of its name, so it would be pretty hard to balance power levels of magic vs everything else. Cool idea, though -- like Deadfire it's an archipelago setting so you could have lots of little self-contained adventures on the different islands.

No, never saw it. I've seen a few of her shows adapted but I can only remember one I watched:

 
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Feist or Sanderson, Feist or Sanderson, Feist or Sanderson???????

I'll go with the new guy, although Betrayal at Krondor was at one time a top ten RPG for me. And playing an updated game in Midkemia would be spectacular. But, I'll take an expansion of the RPG world... Sanderson

very close call

OTOH, we certainly do need more sci fi RPGs. But I think I need to be convinced about Bab 5. There certainly is enough factions and internal strife. Nah, I don't need to be convinced.
 
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I chose "Something else", because it is the option nearest to "it doesn't matter".

If the RPG is good the setting doesn't matter. If the RPG is bad the setting doesn't matter.
 
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At a certain point, though, I think the world has an influence on whether I find an RPG enjoyable.
 
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I second the Conan option (the books). Just selling your services to the highest bidder, plundering everywhere you can, and saving damsels in distress. Think of the dialog possibilities.
 
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I second the Conan option (the books). Just selling your services to the highest bidder, plundering everywhere you can, and saving damsels in distress. Think of the dialog possibilities.
Aye as long as it's not another MMO or F2P server game again.

Which is highly doubtful as Funcom owns the IP.
 
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I like the Riftwar series, but I voted for something else from Raymond E. Feist:

Daughter of the Empire (1987) with Janny Wurts
Servant of the Empire (1990) with Janny Wurts
Mistress of the Empire (1992) with Janny Wurts
 
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For me everything is fine where the setting is in itself logical and down to earth.

By that I mean that the setting cannot just make things up on the fly, everything has to make sense for the player. If there is magic, it needs to be embedded into the world. It could also be extremely mysical and not be explained at all. But it cannot be something used as on and off switch and being off whenever it's required for the tension of the story.
This, in combination with "down to earth" also means that you cannot just have abstract elements or gods. You are not the chosen one to talk to gods and save the world. If there are gods in the world, they either need to be mystical entities which hardly do anything or you can hadly tell they even exist, or the opposite, when it's just people called gods.

So what would be the best setting?
For me that is any well thought out world, with restrictive use of magic, and partially a strict license.
In theory Lords of the Rings would be a good setting. Not familiar with most of the games though. But the setting and world in itself is fine.
The beforementioned Conan is cool as well. Very low fantasy. Very down to earth.

And last but not least I also want to mention The Dark Eye. Everything has good explanations in that world, you do have gods, but they hardly do anything. You have magic, but its rare, well explained and very limited in use.
And generally you are a small adventure, not a chosen one, and not saving the world.
It's more like with an Indiana Jones Movie, which shows you that a mythical thing exists, just to have it crumble in the end, because it's set in the past, and our present wouldn't make sense if it actually happened that way and the holy grail or whatever would be an actual thing.
With the Dark Eye you have a World which is fully designed, even over a large timespan (though I don't like the post apocalyptic part), your pary can do some stuff, but it has to be confirm with the world as it is, and as we know it will be.
 
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Oh, and one thing I want to mention as this is actually the world I'd like to play in the most and which would work great is the world of "Schattenjagd", which is a German Book by Wolfgang Holhbein.
It's about a boy who plays a video game which uses the available resourses to grow.
So once this boy put it onto his fathers work servers, it grows out of control, and even merges with reality.
The boy uses VR to more around in this world, and it's actually described as a growing computer game. A the edge of the world you can see how the program is generating the new areas piece by piece.

Would love to have an RPG experience like that.
51YB24KKJML._SX283_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 
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I like the Riftwar series, but I voted for something else from Raymond E. Feist:

Daughter of the Empire (1987) with Janny Wurts
Servant of the Empire (1990) with Janny Wurts
Mistress of the Empire (1992) with Janny Wurts

Same "universe" as Riftwar (but mostly set on a different world, true).

It's one of my top 5 fantasy trilogies though, I rate it higher than the original Riftwar trilogy, so I wouldn't be averse to a game in the setting. :)
 
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I'm a bigger fan of the first initial series, but the Empire books are well worth reading as well, in my opinion. You really cannot go wrong with any of the books, at least the ones that I've read to date.
 
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I would like to play as Uhtred in the Saxon Tales by Bernard Cornwell.

I would also love to play as Thanos going from planet to planet and killing everyone. I guess that setting would be the universe. Not from the movies but from the Jim Starlin 1970's comics. You try and please Lady Death. Warlock and Captain Marvell try to stop your divine justice. Silver Surfer could also try and defeat the Mad Titan. Quests could be for the Cosmic Cube and Infinity Gauntlet.

Ahhh, my Nihilistic dreams will never come to fruition.
 
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I would totally buy a product that was set in any of Cornwell's worlds, assuming the developer had his backing. I'd likely purchase the thing day one if they actually had his support!!!!
 
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Monte Cook's Dark Space for RoleMaster. A science fiction universe with plenty of magic. Hard technology is outlawed but biotech is allowed - including cyberpunk style implants. (So your implants are actually living beings, bioengineered to do something useful for you.) There's also Lovecraftian monsters out in space.
 
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Stormlight, as in The Stormlight Archives? If so, that would be a badass RPG setting.
 
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