Advice: a good system for Urban Fantasy / Pulp Adventure

[Bryan]

Going to start a new campaign and my group is debating the system. Alternate history set in the 1930s; a mix of pulp adventure and urban fantasy.

Want to keep it a little light on the crunch as the narrative is the thing.

We've looked at a few systems but don't have much experience with most of them so I thought I'd seek some advice before investing time and money into them.

Savage Worlds was what I was thinking of when I first thought this up but someone pointed out that it doesn't seem to handle more powerful characters well. As we progress into this setting's version of WW2, some of the characters will be heavy hitters in the conflict if all goes to plan. This is still the one I am leaning towards personally.

Spirit of the Century looks promising but kind of goofy-looking at first glance. Some wackiness isn't an issue but I don't want the whole thing to degenerate into a spoof of itself.

Somebody mentioned Dresden Files but I'm kind of hesitant to use a licensed property when I am going to Adamson the licensed setting and have to house rule heavily to add stuff that isn't part of that setting.

Mutants & Masterminds seems like the best bet but is crunchier than I was hoping for.

At the end of the day, I don't generally get hung up on systems. I just 2ant one that will help us tell these stories without tripping us up.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Bryan]

That's what I get for not previewing the post when I type it out on my phone

[Chad Hooper]

About 12 years ago we did a modern Urban Fantasy story. We used Ars Magica 4th Edition with the weapon damages from an old game called The Morrow Project tacked on for firearms, grenades, etc. You have to tweak the magic a little bit (electricity is manipulated via whatever medium it is traveling in) and decide if/how you want to deal with the different Powers, Auras, etc. For us, it worked well. YMMV.

[Benthesquid]

You might try Urban Shadows. By default it's assumed to be running in a modern urban fantasy setting, but none of the rules interface particularly with modern technology. To set it in the thirties, cross out the line in gear where it specifies characters start with a cell-phone, maybe go over some of the custom weapons available to the Hunter, and you should be just about good to go.

[Rakaydos]

Urban Jungle is a 1920s noir RPG, and the first splatbook (in the next month or so) will be adding Occult Horror. It might be close enough to what you want, if you have a tolerance for animal stereotypes.

[tensai_oni]

FATE in general or Spirit of the Century in particular is a good bet. You expressed worry it might be too goofy, but that's all in the execution - how much of a spoof it will be depends only on the GM.

[Koo Rehtorb]

http://www.magpiegames.com/our-games/urban-shadows/

[2D8HP]

Chaosium's BRP, which is just so intuitive.

(Here's a pdf sample (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwi2yMuqooTUAhVpz1QKHZrTAPAQFggfMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chaosium.com%2Fcontent%2FFree PDFs%2FBRP%2FCHA2021%2520-%2520Basic%2520RolePlaying%2520Quick-Start.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGmy2_JQrnYDUhYIyRJT3ghBDKF-Q)), it is my "go-to" generic system.

They're many BRP based games, the most known of which is the Call of Cthullu, which I found to be one of the easiest RPG's to Gamemaster or "Keeper", more D&D like were RuneQuest (the original "BRP" game), Pendragon (my favorite).

Astounding Adventures (https://www.chaosium.com/astounding-adventures/) is a "pulp" rules supplement.

[Rhedyn]

Savage Worlds was what I was thinking of when I first thought this up but someone pointed out that it doesn't seem to handle more powerful characters well. As we progress into this setting's version of WW2, some of the characters will be heavy hitters in the conflict if all goes to plan. This is still the one I am leaning towards personally.

The super powers companion and the Sci-fi companion adds ways to make the PCs much stronger.

I would say Savage Worlds works better in lower power ranges, but I still say it works great for supers and high sci-fi combat.

Shaintar is a setting book with mechanics for high powered pure fantasy characters. Especially when you get deep into legendary.

[Bryan]

Thank you to everyone who responded. We looked at all of the systems suggested. As it turns out, a couple of the other guys are interested in running parallel campaigns in the same setting but with differing themes.

My concept was for an urban adventure in a somewhat horrific urban fantasy setting. Another guy (Steve) is interested in an Indiana Jones style treasure hunt while yet another (Teddy) is thinking of a Barsoom type science fiction.

Initially I thought that it would be best to just keep them separate but I'm becoming convinced that it would be very cool if we could pull off an MCU shared universe type thing.

Anyway, Savage Worlds has plenty of content to cover all of those angles so I think that is what we are going to go with. Teddy is campaigning hard for M&M 3e as the ultimate in versatility but I've been looking around online and have seen SW conversions for everything from Conan to Superman so how hard can it be?

[Anonymouswizard]

Spirit of the Century looks promising but kind of goofy-looking at first glance. Some wackiness isn't an issue but I don't want the whole thing to degenerate into a spoof of itself.

Somebody mentioned Dresden Files but I'm kind of hesitant to use a licensed property when I am going to Adamson the licensed setting and have to house rule heavily to add stuff that isn't part of that setting.

Look at Fate Core (http://drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?filters=0_0_44284_0_0&term=Fate&test_epoch=0), which is essentially a refined version of the Dresden Files interpretation of Fate, and Fate Accelerate (http://drivethrurpg.com/product/114902/Fate-Accelerated-Edition?filters=0_0_44284_0_0), it's rules-light counterpart.


Thank you to everyone who responded. We looked at all of the systems suggested. As it turns out, a couple of the other guys are interested in running parallel campaigns in the same setting but with differing themes.

My concept was for an urban adventure in a somewhat horrific urban fantasy setting. Another guy (Steve) is interested in an Indiana Jones style treasure hunt while yet another (Teddy) is thinking of a Barsoom type science fiction.

Initially I thought that it would be best to just keep them separate but I'm becoming convinced that it would be very cool if we could pull off an MCU shared universe type thing.

Anyway, Savage Worlds has plenty of content to cover all of those angles so I think that is what we are going to go with. Teddy is campaigning hard for M&M 3e as the ultimate in versatility but I've been looking around online and have seen SW conversions for everything from Conan to Superman so how hard can it be?

Definitely look at Fate. It's much more versatile out of the box than Savage Worlds is, and has official conversions that range from the silly, to pulp SF, to science fantasy, to somewhat horrific urban fantasy (the October fifty page setting last year, it's actually pretty good). It ranges from silly ideas played straight (Under the Table, Arthurian mythology prohibition-era gangster fiction, and Uranium Chef, centered around a space opera cooking show), to silly ideas played silly (Agency is just bizarre at times, for example), to serious stuff played straight.

Fate is very flexible. It can do everything from courtly intrigue to high action superheroics right out of the box (although the latter either requires adjusting the stunt rules to allow stacking, making powers as Extras, or just realising that the system intentionally doesn't define what 'great' is). You can also have characters of different levels of competency by adjusting the starting skill pyramid while using the same skill list.

Not that Savage Worlds is bad, but if you're able to get into Aspects and the Fate Point economy then Fate will likely be so much better. It's significantly more versatile than M&M 3e, partially because it expect you to create Stunts to a guideline instead of picking from a list, and partially because it expects you to change a lot by shifting how things are described.

[Rhedyn]

Not that Savage Worlds is bad, but if you're able to get into Aspects and the Fate Point economy then Fate will likely be so much better. It's significantly more versatile than M&M 3e, partially because it expect you to create Stunts to a guideline instead of picking from a list, and partially because it expects you to change a lot by shifting how things are described.
I got the impression that he wanted something more like Savage World's bennies.

Fate games are pretty different in general.

[Anonymouswizard]

I got the impression that he wanted something more like Savage World's bennies.

Fate games are pretty different in general.

Oh, I was mainly bringing up Fate because he'd been looking at two of them, and I think the latest take on it would be great for the 'characters potentially moving between genres'aspect.

For any single campaign SW will work beautifully, but it's when you being characters using different Setting Rules together it can get problematic.