I've started a new channel dedicated to short indy game designer sourcebooks and games. These will just be short, under four minute flip throughs of books and longer full reviews will still apear on this main channel. The short flip throughs are so you can simply see the book art and hear my thoughts in a quick format. I recorded nine videos this afternoon. I'll be uploading them right after I edit them. Be sure to subscribe for a glance at my favorite TTRPG books, past and present. www.youtube.com/@WeLoveRPGBookReviews
@@cdubsb3831 Yeah I considered that but it would be a time sink because it would never generate the amount of engagement it required to be worth the effort. The one's i've recorded now come out to around 2.5 minutes.
Love blending! Thundaar the Barbarian is a great example, imo. A barbarian warrior with a sun sword, a sorcerous and a mutant...of some kind? Ookla the Mok, whatever a Mok is.
What a coincidence, I am currently running a Fantasy setting where the player's home city was invaded by a metallic flying castle that spewed forth flying iron golems... o.O
My setting is based in fallout with a mechanic of magic taint. Goblins orcs and drow are mutated elves. The underdark interconnected geofront. The best was the dungeons being remains of a lost advanced elf civilisation.
Appendix N - such an adventure on it's own! Very cool video, Aten. You consistently remind everyone of the breadth of the hobby. Thank you, good sir! 🍪☕
Love it! I've always been a fan of post-apocalyptic games and the premise of my own campaign world is essentially medieval fantasy built on the very-ancient ruins of a highly advanced society. The monsters and various random constructs are leftovers from that advanced society ~ along with the obligatory instrusions of creatures and magic from neighboring dimensions, of course.
Absolutely! And I'm super excited about my new book review channel. Just short flip throughs to show off the books and give some brief thoughts. I've wanted something like that before when I'm shopping for or interested in game books. hopefully others will agree!
Makes sense since Gygax was inspired by Jack Vance, who combined sci-fi and fantasy without distinction in his stories. In fact dividing the genre into sci-fi and fantasy is a modern invention and the line didn't exist for Burroughs, Moorcock, Lovecraft etc.
A hombrew world I'm making has an ancient civilization that destroyed itself and my players would find artifacts that used magic to power them, but being that Krull is one of my favorite sci-fi/ sword and sorcery movies, I might have to rewatch it again to get more ideas as well
I've started to look at Machinations of the Space Princess by Postmortem Studios (James Desborough) "Sexy, Sleazy, Swords, and Sci-Fi" for combining genres. Lots of flexibility with the sci-fi and magic (super high tech).
another great video, I subscribed to the new channel and this vid made me even more excited to do so, and I loved the Numenera adventure shout out, as Numenera is what I am GMing right now
Somehow, the following quote seems appropriate. ---- "It's the wild colour scheme that freaks me," said Zaphod, whose love affair with this ship had lasted almost three minutes into the flight, "Every time you try to operate on of these weird black controls that are labelled in black on a black background, a little black light lights up black to let you know you've done it. What is this? Some kind of galactic hyperhearse?" - Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Hahaha! That is one devious DM! "Do you want to look down the tube and push the button to see what it does?" : Anyway, remember a fun session at a Con playing Gamma World looking for a guy named "Philips".
I feel like blending sci-fi elements with fantasy elements is something that needs to be done intentionally, with worldbuilding in mind. (Maybe that's why I'm like Gygax; I never liked psionics, either). _Expedition to the Barrier Peaks_ is a fun module, but it's also very old-school, in that a huge hook of it is that the DM is playing an extended joke on the players, leading up to "You're on a crashed spaceship!" as the punchline, and what the fact that there are spacefaring civilizations who occasionally do fly-bys of the World of Greyhawk and what that means to Greyhawk's cosmology, its gods and worldbuilding, etc. is never addressed (and never really needs to be, in the style of an old-school game). I personally much prefer when those elements are meaningfully intertwined, something that happens a lot in video games (such as in the old CRPG _Legacy of the Ancients,_ where an alien civilization has a museum on a fantasy-world planet and the story centers around how a local managed to find the museum and swipe the local equivalent of the One Ring out of an exhibit and the player character was another local drafted by the museum to clean up the mess, or in the JRPG _Phantasy Star_ series, where the overall setting is sci-fi, but fantasy elements intrude because the solar system where the games take place is a cosmic seal on an evil god (technically, less "evil" than "neutral and insane from confinement")), or for that matter in _Shadowrun._ I think this is because--personally speaking--I think that multiverses generally muck with my sense of scale. There's a difference in scale between "we protect this village from rampaging orcs" and "we are trying to save the world from the BBEG" and _if_ there's a multiverse, then world-shattering problems are reduced to the scale of local problems while still having all the elements of world-shattering problems, and it gives me cognitive dissonance.
Love this! Currently I am working on a mashup of “The Prisoner” television show and “Forbidden Planet”. I am sure I have shared this before. These suggestions will come in beautifully. Thank you Also, I have a cult of apocalyptic believers who believe becoming vampires is the only way to survive the planetary journey to a new world.
It reminded me of one campaign we played about two years ago. The concept was that high-elven kingdom entered a semi-silent civil war and we could join the government or resistance (we of course choose resistance, in part because D&D and in part because we are Ukrainians). It had high-tech/low life, grotesque body modifications, resistance brewing in the city sewers, and some variation of a nuclear race (not literal nukes, but if both sides wouldn't hold back, they would quite literally burn the world down). Overall, I was absolutely sure it was a cyberpunk and couldn't understand why the DM insisted it wasn't. We ended up abandoning that campaign (concluding that diplomathy worked and our characters didn't safe the day but did get out of a mess they got themselves into), and it took me almost another two years to figure out that it was never intended to be cyberpunk, and that's why me acting on an assumption that it was somewhat annoyed the DM. Not sure what the conclusion out of it (except for the fact that we both could use better communication skills)
Player's cant be mind readers. It is first and foremost the DM's responsibility to catch on to and interpret what the players are perceiving. Since the DM knows what their intent is, that's their job to communicate what they are trying to convey and correct misunderstandings.
Everyone should try this. Mixing things a bit is so much fun for my players at least. In every of my games there is Cthulhu, that’s for sure. And to use at least some sci-fi tropes is never wrong. Magic is a force of nature in fantasy and so it always can be manipulated by fantasy science in my worlds.
I first combined genres in 1984, very shortly after I began my TTRPG life, using an obscure game made for just that. Lords of Creation (Tom Moldvay, 1983,Avalon Hill), and I haven't slowed down yet. That said, most of my campaigns rest firmly in their given genres, whether combined or pure. I find most are a mixture of elements anyway. I prefer to stay true to a setting's established parameters if known.
Even outside of the context of introducing elements of Sci-Fi to a fantasy game, describing things as the CHARATERS see or understand them (not the PLAYERS) is just good advice in general.
makes me think about digging out my Alternity StarCraft, Dark Matter, and StarDrive materials and try converting them to 5e. Mechalus are sort of Borg, Fraal are like StarGate Asgard, Weren were kind of wookie klingons. Throw in varieties of zerg (xeno-morphs, species), protoss (predator). DarkMatter brings X-files kind of play. Base Alternity included mutants, Psi, and cyborgs. and the supplements offered androids, superheoros, and reality hopping ('Tangents' is one of the best books for creating alternate realities or even just setting building).
This was awesome, reminded me of when I brought characters from my Star Wars campaign into a high fantasy game-It was beautiful. Thanks Aten for the great video, I hope you're having fun. =^_^=
Numaria in Pathfinder’s default setting is a barbarian kingdom with a crashed spaceship in it. It could be fantastic in its own right, but the world has too much shoehorned into it. Shadowrun is a cyberpunk game with magic, blending those two rather seamlessly. Star Wars in pretty much any era with Jedi or Sith is a fantasy/sci-fi crossover. Jedi comes from the Sengoku jeddai, the warring states period between the Kamakura shogunate and the Tokugawa Shogunate. And Sith is the Scottish form the Irish of Shidhe, or fairy. Warhammer 40k is a blending of sci-fi and fantasy as well. The wizards are just called Librarians or Chaplains in that setting for humans. The Eldar are Tolkien’s elves. And orks are, well duh. It really isn’t hard to blend the two, if you can see what blending the two can be. You already have several examples, but you may not see that you have them.
@@welovettrpgs I think you missed the point of that comment. They were removed from 2e and added back in one of the PHBR series books. Anybody looking at just the core books would see no Psionics whatsoever in AD&D 2e. That was to head off at the pass anyone coming to the comments to refute that there were Psionics in 2e. I was tacking on a footnote for you.
Thank you so much Aten! I ran Tempel of the Frog, twice. The sci-fi blend was not appreciated. But I was 15 years old, so I am certain it is my own fault. Again, thank you! Sincerely, Alicia from Sweden
A great many factors can shape our influences and how we receive something. It may not be your style and thats ok or it may have simply been how it was presented at the time. The only important thing is to remain open to new experiences until you know for sure which is the right answer. Thanks!
Great timing for me with this topic. I just recently was inspired to start working on an organization that is modeled after the Cylons from the Battlestar Galactica reboot. Since I run 5e D&D, I would be using Warforged as the base for them, with alterations and the main ones being able to disguise themselves as humanoid races. As each one dies, their consciousness would be transported to a new copy of that individual. The crashed ships would be in the Anauroch, possibly one where they are manufacturing more and the other as the resurrection ship.
Love this! It can be a great moment at the table as you describe something like a rusted mech, or something advanced through a lens that the PCs would understand. The recognition on a players face when they realise is incredible. "You come across a cylindrical metal building lodged at an angle in the earth. A long metal corridor with rows of seats either side of a narrow isle. Some kind of temple perhaps, but instead of pews there are 3 seats either side of the isle all looking down the length of the tube, with each row having an oval window to let in light from the outside. Dead, once organic creatures appear to hang down from narrow tendrils above each seat from the low roof, the skin of some kind of face sucking proboscis looks faded and cracked."
Great example. I havent done it yet but I've long considered having the PCs encounter a rusted derelict German U Boat with a zombie crew (that fell through some time portal) and the challenge is to describe it in a way the players wouldn't catch on to unless they were very intuitive.
@@welovettrpgs That's awesome! Makes me think of the 'Dies the Fire' series of books. Where technology stops working in the 2000s and the world has to re-adapt to medieval technology. Anyone born after the change thinks of stories of helicopters and planes like we do of dragons and other mythical beasts. Any kind of Nuclear reactor could be seen as some kind of necrotic cursed tomb.
Robot Jox is never referenced enough! I don't know if the D&D ruleset is suited to many different genres. I've actually just finished a session of Everyday Heroes (Rambo setting), which is awesome and I honestly prefer it to standard d&d. But it's a set setting and trying to mix other settings with d&d rules takes a lot of work. And the rules don't lend themselves to it, I feel. I highly recommend checking out Monty Cook's Cypher System. It's very rules light and is perfect for allowing genre hoping adventures (in fact, one setting book is essentially a mix of Quantum Leap and Star Gate). If you want to blend genres, it's perfect.
@@welovettrpgs Yeah, I've really fallen in love with those books. They're breathed new life into my D&D games. I mentioned the Cypher System as it's a great basis for any type of game you want. Evil Genius really have an opportunity with Everyday Heroes to do the same and become a base system that any genre could be played from. They've their space setting coming soon, and (I don't know if one's coming) I'd love a magic system that could cover settings from Fantasy to Buffy to Dresden Files.
@@Hugh839 Great news: I'll be interviewing the Evil Genius CEO next week and I've been in communication with the lead game designer. Right now I'm not planning a video of these interviews but I will be discussing them and my findings in the near future as I work on my review videos for the game.
You should have mentioned Palladium Book's Rift, also, I would not mind to see more stuffs about Numenéra, that setting is even more insane than Rifts.
The video was already too long given a lot of viewers don't want to watch videos longer than six minutes (based on objective video analytics). And because this is still a small channel struggling for views I have to make some compromises with the RU-vid algorithm. This is in part why I have recently launched the book review channel . That will allow me to cover a much broader selection of games in a short faceless channel format.
Sure you don't mean the Blume Brothers? In any case, I'm really not here as a place for people to make reddit posts, if that's your intention, I'm not interested. I wish to keep this a positive place not dragged down into a mire of negativity. There are plenty of other places for that where shitposting is encouraged. Thanks for the views.
@@welovettrpgs look up Gary's receipts from his time in Hollywood, plus he was double and triple paying himself wages as c-suite, writer, editor, and book royalties, while screwing other authors out of their royalties by ceasing print on their books then rewriting them with himself as the author (including the abrupt switch from B1 to B2 in the box). He was a consummate businessman in both the best and worst ways. Nice enough guy (if you were a white male), but terrible business partner.
Remember, He-Man would have been just another Conan the Barbarian clone had they not involved science fiction elements. Though that does give me ideas of using Expedition to the Barrier Peaks to turn it into He-Man, but make it a giant zoo to release cybernetic dinosaurs into the world.
Thank you so much! This is really great timing for my mood. I actually wrote an "I'm leaving RU-vid" script yesterday out of frustration at seeing nearly every video bomb, stagnant growth, even losing subs ... however those of you who have shown your kindness and support really have kept me going. Thank you very much!
@@welovettrpgs I apologize for not commenting more often or offering encouragement but I hope you continue making your excellent channel grow. Apologies for my first comment not being proofread better. Thank you!
Help me out here, fellow grognards. I distinctly remember something in a D&D module or sourcebook from the early to mid eighties that described a floating island made from the wreckage of abandoned ships. I seem to recall a mention of a strange ship with a metal hull and no masts or oars. Does that sound familiar to anyone?
