Playing X with Y

This is sort of a thread-game (and/or game-thread^^),

in it, we recount our experiences, or boldly announce our plans, hopes and dreams, of playing one particular RPG but using the rules of a different one to do so!

I’ll start:

Right now, I’m running Dungeon World, but with Mage: the Ascension for the rules :mrgreen:

(it started out very innocently, my players made a ranger, a paladin and a druid for a brief two-shot of DW, in order to test the game out a bit. As it happens, the ranger died sometime during the 2nd part of the adventure, and we haven’t really been getting any sequels going ever since… until now the ex-Ranger-player went out of the country for a while and we others decided, hey, let’s make Dark Ages Mage characters out of the Druid and the Paladin! Worked wonderfully for the first two sessions so far :smiley:)

We use the setting of a pseudo-medieval fantasy world (lots of kingdoms, goblins, wizards, dragons, elves… unrealistically closely arrayed climate zones… you know the drill…), with a certain “dark twisted fairy tales” vibe to it,

and the rules are Mage: the Ascension (“old” World of Darkness in youngster jargon, which to me however is still known simply as “the” World of Darkness ^^)… yes, that game that is renowned as one of the most head-breaking and un-runable games ever to be released :sunglasses:

What games have you played, or would love to play, by a different ruleset from what originally came with it?

A lot actually:

The most infamous was using Werwolf the Apocalypse (Old WoD) to run a Magical Girl series (called “Magical Pixie Wolves: Apocalypse of Hearts”),
followed by using Unknown Armies to run a “Gritty Robin Hood Story”, which was actually Berserk in disguise,
and using b World of Darkness: Innocents[/b] to run a Cyborg game.

Others where, using HELLAS RPG to play a Mecha series with an Illiad vibe (it was called DEUS EX MECHA^^);
using Technoir to run Shadowrun set in Tenochtitlan;
using Technoir to run a Kuro RPG game;
using Angel/Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG to run a psychedelic series á la the movie Enter the Void;
reskinning Paranoia to run a “Goblins Fantasy RPG”;
using FATE (Nova Praxis) to run Eclipse Phase;
using Numenera to run a Pathfinder Adventure Path (did not play that one yet);

and using d20 to run “Buffy the Vampire Slayer x Vampire the Masquerade” set in Majorca (it was called “Ein Pflock im Kornfeld”, since the Watcher was Jürgen Drews), just because it hurts so much :mrgreen:

If someone has questions, I will go into more detail.^^

Haha, of course Darth, you are sort of the unbeaten master at this! :mrgreen:
Lots of those sound awesome and hilarious - Magical Pixie Wolves made my day ^^, the Berserk thing is a really cool idea too… and Numenera/Pathfinder sounds like they were just made for each other :wink:

I won’t even comment on “Ein Pflock im Kornfeld”, as I only just finished laughing at this way harder than I probably should have XD

I’d like to run Dark Sun with Dogs in the Vineyard sometime -
sort of a “templars in the oasis” kinda approach (evil or at (least selfishly career egotistic) servants of the sorcerer-king going around to uncover the various misbehavings among their flock of oppressed, rebellious, tax-dodging, secretly-other-gods-worshipping, each-other-murdering assorted scum and scoundrels)

and, since you brought it up, Buffy the Vampire Slayer with My Life with Master -
which would make it “My Slaying with Watcher” of course, where the Watcher gives his orders to a player team consisting of a Slayer and their scooby gang

Also, I really wanna do something with REIGN some time, but haven’t really been able to settle for a setting to properly destr-, erm, contrast! it with… perhaps Shadowrun, though… or Vampire: the Masquerade:wink:

I do this occasionally. Not for any hopes and dreams reasons, however, but simply because it’s practical. If a game takes an hour and a half to explain and another hour to create characters, then sure, I’ll replace it with something simple and generic for a Thursday night one-shot. If it’s better for the game if the players don’t know what they’re getting into (hello, Call of Cthulhu), then I’ll use a different system as a masking agent. But that’s about it. I don’t generally attach enough importance to systems to go to the trouble of swapping one set of rules for another.

But you knew that already, right?

[quote=“Auburney”]the Berserk thing is a really cool idea too… [/quote]That needed really a lot of preperation to pull of … it is so hard to really scare players, but the “Robin Hood”-disguise (almost) hold till the end. Only one player pierced the disguise one session before the last, but she played along.
The system really worked well, and it was pretty easy to create characters. We had even two magical PCs: A witch, who was a variant of a “Narco-Alchemist Adept”, and another player, who played an “Avatar of the Merchant” - both btw. did not knew that they had supernatural powers from the beginning. :smiling_imp:
The other characters were more combat focused.

Depends … but it could work very well, if you want to run the Iron Gods adventure path (~ which has an “Expetition to the Barrier Peaks” vibe)

[quote=“Auburney”]I won’t even comment on “Ein Pflock im Kornfeld”, as I only just finished laughing at this way harder than I probably should have XD[/quote]I probably should have used the Buffy tVS RPG (Cinematic Unisystem) - which I really like, except its XP table, but that is easy to houserule - to run that, but to be able to say things like “The two 4th level Nosferatu move into flanking postion to be able to sneak attack you”, was totally worth it.
The setting was Ballermann 6 / Majorca in the late 80s and the players were german, austrian and swiss teenagers on summer holidays with their school classes, after the had finished their final secondary-school examinations (“Abi-Reise” / “Matura Reise” in german).
It drew a lot of inspiration from coming of age movies / teen comedies from the late 70s / early 80s like “Lemon Popsicle” or “American Graffiti”, as well as from the german speaking “Schlager”-szene. On the island there were two former vampire allies, now locked in (cold) war: Dieter (Ventrue) and Thomas (Toreador). Although both were both secretly manipulated by a high level Lasombra, called Roy the Black. :laughing:

The idea was from a swedish guy ~2000 (when the Werewolf the Apocalypse Revised Edition was just released), but i had to wait several years, till a found a group, that would play this. He later made a RPG.net Thread ~2006, although his premise had another direction.
Mine was a romantic action-comedy, but headed towards drama till the end of the 2nd Season.

The name hails from Ethan Skemp, who called “Magical Pixie Wolves” as the epitome of what he didn’t want to see from Freelancers.

The only rulechanges I made were, that the supernatural powers, called “Gifts” in this game, were not only tought by spirits, but also manifested spontaneously during a crises. So PCs could spend their XP on Auspice, Tribe and Breed “Gifts” during an action scene, but not between game sessions.
Although the player had to invent a “dance move” for every “Gift”, which she had to perform irl, when activating it (e.g. “robo dance” for “Control Simple Machines”).

There even was fanart and cosplay :laughing:

In general I use it for practicability (e.g. Technoir to run a Shadowrun one-shot), masking purposes (e.g. Yggdrassill to run a Call of Cthulhu game set in mythic iceland), or just for trolling (e.g. using d20, or Old WoD for any “non-appropiate” setting, even if I do not like the mechanics).

In addition, since I (most of the time) start with the idea of an adventure first and ponder about what system I should use later - preferable one that emphasises the things I want to stress - the chances that I will use something “different” with some added houserules are rather high.^^

I am really fond of the Deconstruction and Reconstruction tropes, so if I want to run WH40K: Dark Heresy as an action-comedy with romance sub-plots, such things will force me to think, if using the “original” rule-set is really appropiate. :wink:

[quote=“Auburney”]I’d like to run Dark Sun with Dogs in the Vineyard sometime - sort of a “templars in the oasis” kinda approach (evil or at (least selfishly career egotistic) servants of the sorcerer-king going around to uncover the various misbehavings among their flock of oppressed, rebellious, tax-dodging, secretly-other-gods-worshipping, each-other-murdering assorted scum and scoundrels)[/quote]That sounds really nice :slight_smile:
I really want to “use” the Dark Sun setting, but I am still not sure for “what”.

[quote=“Auburney”]Also, I really wanna do something with REIGN some time, but haven’t really been able to settle for a setting to properly destr-, erm, contrast! it with… perhaps Shadowrun, though… or Vampire: the Masquerade:wink:[/quote]I want to run a Monsters and other Childish Things game (also an ORE game), sometime in the next years :slight_smile:
Maybe REIGN again … maybe Game of Thrones?? … dunno yet.

…not really (originally) an RPG, but…

Blood Bowl with D&D 4e

:smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

(no shit though, I think that might be actually awesome)

Do “Reskins” count as well?

Such as using Yggdrasill to run Star Wars, or a Call of Cthulhu game?

Or the using WH40K Dark Heresy to run a light-hearted Action-Comedy.
The last one work really well. :laughing:
You cannot imagine how may chibi fan-art for WH40K exists :open_mouth:

[quote=“Auburney”]…not really (originally) an RPG, but…

Blood Bowl with D&D 4e[/quote]
Hmm … now that you mention it, those two are actually pretty similar already, aren’t they, especially with the focus on attacks of opportunity. Interesting …

True… also, what with all the pushing and pulling people, shifting around etc. - all that should come in handy as well, in a game as focussed on grid-squares as BB/D&D4

The whole throwing and catching thing would need some rule add-ons, but yeah - probably just render it as skills, set some DCs and you’re good to go.

Movement rates might need some looking at, with regard to playing field sizes…

[quote]Do “Reskins” count as well?

Such as using Yggdrasill to run Star Wars, or a Call of Cthulhu game?

Or the using WH40K Dark Heresy to run a light-hearted Action-Comedy.[/quote]
Sure they do! :slight_smile:

That Yggdrasil/StarWars game was one of the most awesome “stealth joke oneshots” I’ve been in… and the comedic WH40K thing sounds full of potential as well. (Shame I wouldn’t be able to pull it off with my group - they tend to take the WH40K canon waaay too seriously for something like that… :stuck_out_tongue: :wink: )

For “Light Heresy” I just increased the PCs’ Fate Points by +3 each and they would regain burned Fate Points at every ~ 2nd to 3rd Session (when one of the “longer” plot arcs had ended). In addition burning Fate Points to save your PC’s life would restore him to full health directly after the scene.
Then I rewrote some of the random tables (imperial divination, imperial psyker sanctioning effects, psychic phenomena, perils of the warp, mutation, and the background tables of the Feral World and Mind-Cleansed “homeworlds” - the other random tables were fine and were played for comedic effect).

The rest was “adjusting” the setting to make it hillarious:
e.g. Tyranid Jeanstealers were illegal Alien immigrants, who were notorious panty-thieves … the Inquisition captures them to send them back into their Alien Reservation.

btw. the was a “X with Y” within this RPG Saga as a plot-arc
We played Twilight in the WH40K universe.

Bella: " I want to become a Blood Angel space marine, too!"
Edward the Blood Angel: “Noooo … You cannot!” (stares)
Bella: (stares)
Jacob the Space Wolf: (stares from the distance)
Bella: (stares)
Edward the Blood Angel: “Unless you marry me!” (sparkles)

This is killing me :smiley:
You know you gotta stop coming up with such hilarous ideas eventually, right? No one’s ever gonna be able to take our hobby seriously anymore… oh wait… nevermind, carry right on please :wink:

Some more things I’d like to try sometimes:

each and any one of those early-to-mid-90ies, setting-heavy trad games (Shadowrun, Vampire: the Masquerade, Dark Sun… heck, even Ravenloft)… with Primetime Adventures

[quote=“Auburney”]This is killing me :smiley:
You know you gotta stop coming up with such hilarous ideas eventually, right? No one’s ever gonna be able to take our hobby seriously anymore… oh wait… nevermind, carry right on please :wink:[/quote]
… then you and your group might like this little WH40K fanfic :smiley: (it is ~ 4 years old):

[size=120]Jean-Luc Picard will save the Imperium by going to the Golden Throne and reversing the tachyon flux flow of the polaron emissions gravitational deflection fluxers, thereby allowing the energistically modulated proteins afflicting the Emperor’s body to be filted out and regenerating his natural tissue.

Picard’s first words to the Emperor will be like:
“Well Wesley it looks like you caused quite a mess. Not to be worry, we can fix it,
TOGETHER.”

(roll credits)
[/size]