When I was younger, I ran a cross an old RPG known as Power and Perils. It forced me to learn how to use spreadsheets in order to make an accurate character sheet, a skill that came in handy when Exalted came about. I feel that either a customized FATE engine (I have seen some truly disparate interpretations of FATE for different Settings, and it even has a fate point system) or a new wholly built-from-the-ground-up system for a Fallen London Game would be best.
Truthfully, you only have four stats still, ignoring Faction relations. You (and I) are neither Dreaded, nor Respected, nor even considered especially Bizarre, but our equipment and companions may be. However, thrown into Newgate wearing only a Prisoner’s Mask and Ragged Clothing we would still be quite Dangerous, Watchful, Persuasive (though not enough to ensure our release through pure diplomacy), and Shadowy.
One thing that I would like is some achievements and qualities system in the RPG similar to what we already have in the Browser game, along with a system to help guide gamemasters in making their own for their campaign.
This goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: If one of the things keeping this project on the ground is a lack of copy I am happy to send a massive portfolio of RPG stuff to anyone who’ll read it.
I would love a Fallen London rpg. It would be a great way to hook people into the universe, and also a great thing to do with ones time while waiting for actions to refresh ^_~
It might be worth looking into the indie-RPG sphere for development, either to find designers, adapt the setting to an existing ruleset, or simply looking for ideas on mechanics. Quite a large percentage of indie games are are story-focused, with rules to emphasize this.
I really would give my money to FBG right now for a Fallen London RPG.
For me it wouldn’t need much at all, mechanics wise. Just keep the four abilities, menaces, quirks, connections and give us a way to roll for success/failure and some kind of progression. Obviously anyone could come up with this themselves.
What I really want out of the book is the ‘fluff’; loads of info on all places and people in Fallen London (and beyond) combined with a good index (and a pdf version for full text search).
That would be more than enough to run a really fun RPG.
Perhaps a project for after Fallen London has reached it conclusion? (Not that I am looking forward to that day at all.)
There was a project, Knife and Candle, which I believe was to take some inspiration from Apocalypse World. Had a lot of indie designers on it, which was cool.
I actually think that’d be a brilliant chassis. Keeping the “take an Opportunity, success gives you one thing and failure gives you another thing” structure is key, and *World games do exactly that. I also love the basic idea they were batting around: you had four basic actions in the game, and you added options to those actions by gaining minor qualities.
FATE could work (especially with Core out), though–you use the Fate Fractal to represent Qualities and how they interact. You could do a bunch of stuff along those lines.
EDIT: I believe that this was the home of the hack-in-progress. Not sure what happened to it. edited by Playersideblog on 4/16/2013 edited by Playersideblog on 4/16/2013 edited by Playersideblog on 4/16/2013
[li]
The page for the project was still up at last check, though given how long ago I signed up for news with my e-mail address, and with nothing coming out of there, I assume its basically dead in the cold black waters of the Unterzee. Which is a great shame - Fallen London would be a fantastic setting for an RPG. The biggest problem I foresee for Failbetter Games is that a gamesmaster would need a lot Fallen London lore, which they’ve worked quite hard to make people find in-game. I remain hopeful - and acknowledge that those of us who’ve played for long enough (or are simply willing to trawl people’s journals) could put together an interesting game using an engine like Apocalypse World or FATE. Still, I’ll add my vote to seeing it as a tabletop RPG, for what its worth.
[/li][li] edited by Bennet_Carlisle on 1/7/2014
An RPG in the Fallen London setting would be very nice, I’d buy a book or two. I love the setting.
But I’d prefer a not so technical one, the four main qualities and rather few rolls. Regarding content I think the books need to contain the setting, which would include some spoilers that you have dug down in the game. I don’t mean all of them, but enough to give the DM some structure and not say something completely off.
You could add a new area and let people visit Fallen London via ship, that way you don’t need to spoil close to as much in game, can leave more for future supplements or the online game.
I don’t think that’s too big of a deal. No one’s writing canon, simply telling stories with their friends. As long as the GM writes what is consistent with what the characters (not the players) know, you’ve got a game.
[color=#009900]It’s dead: we haven’t heard anything from Vincent or John in a long time, and the license has reverted to us. We’d like to revisit the project with another small publisher, but we have a very full slate and won’t be looking at it for a while.[/color][li]
We would certainly be /interested/ in something like this, but part of the reason we play games like this is because we generally don’t have other people to play with.
So! If something like this were done, we’d have to recommend that the next step be to release a version of it on a platform such as Steam for online play![li]
EDIT: By "recommend that", we mean "beg profusely for" edited by Snowskeeper on 1/7/2014
That makes sense; I hadn’t been able to find any official word on that aspect.[/li][li]
[/li][li]I’ve actually got thoughts tumbling around on how I’d make a tabletop game that let you play Fallen London whilst creating your own lore and folding in whatever pre-existing lore you wanted to. But it’d only be an amateur effort at best.[/li][li]
Ah. I assume the V. Baker would be Vincent Baker, of Dogs in the VIneyard, amongst other things? That’s actually one of three systems I’d been pondering for use myself in making a Fallen London RPG (the other two are Amber Diceless and ORE.) Diceless by Design now has the rights for making games using variants of Amber’s system and ORE is very alive and well, with many variants of its systems out and about.
Both of them employ very creative people who love trinkering with systems to make it do odd things, which the Neath’s quirks could easily be made in. Regardless if what has gone before and FBG’s opinions on the future, I’d like to express my personal interest in gaining an RPG in this world.