Missed Settings
-
Based on a side conversation, I got to thinking: are there any settings that you’re surprised never became MUSHes or were generally not incorporated into the space?
For me, I am fairly surprised no one ever tried to make a Numenera game, considering that it was pretty popular at one point, especially as a lot of the Numenera kickstarters tended to get funded immediately and for well over the asking amount – and even got a pretty decent CRPG tie in (Numenera: Tides of Torment). There’s a lot of weird shit in there that would make it an interesting setting to explore for most people, as well as enough pretty bog-standard fantasy fare that you could have touchstones that people could grab without feeling completely out of the loop. If you wanted to go full simulationist with Cypher, it wouldn’t be that hard (edit: it wouldn’t be that hard by comparison to existing attempts to simulate the mechanics of other games) given that the majority of the character customization bits are attributes that you would put into your character (cyphers, skills, and tier abilities). Player intrusion would also work really well in a MUSH space.
The same as above, but leveraged towards The Strange and some other Monte Cook projects as well. Even stripping away the Cypher system altogether, things like The Strange or Old Gods of Appalachia seem like they’d be great MUSH fodder and you could probably do OGoA with something like FS3 given that the main characters are rarely supernatural themselves. Some of those other radio play style podcasts would be cool as well: the White Vault, Magnus Archives (also a Monte Cook project), and so on.
Finally, Fallen London! Back in the day when it was still Echo Bazaar, I knew a bunch of MUSHers who played it and really loved the setting. There are obviously some problematic elements given Alexis Kennedy, but the writing and worldbuilding that Failbetter still produces is great and it’s clear it didn’t hinge on his legacy.
"And the Fool says, pointing to the invertebrate fauna feeding in the graves: 'Here a monarchy reigns, mightier than you: His Majesty the Worm.'"
Italo Calvino, The Castle of Crossed Destines -
I’ve spent the better part of the last year utterly gobbling up everything in Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere (Stormlight Archives, Mistborn, Warbreaker, etc.) catalog, and I am so freaking sad that there don’t seem to be any Cosmere-based games.
Having an already-established world with a well-thought-out magic system that you can do tons of interesting things with?
It would so be my jam, right about now.
-
At first I was going to just make a list of my top three, but then I realized the list is quite large and I can’t actually pick 3 over the rest, and it extends to TTRPG systems as well as settings in general. So here’s my big list, with some notes:
- Unknown Armies (2nd Edition, 3E is better, but mechanically unsuitable for a MU)
- Unhallowed Metropolis (Steampunk Zombie Apocalypse London, enough said)
- Historical WoD (I understand that historical settings of WoD open up a lot of potentially unwanted RP, but at the same time, it’s still surprising to me that very few of these have ever existed that I can recall.)
- Exalted (I’m not the biggest fan of Exalted, but still, where are the Exalted MUs?)
- Cypher System (in all it’s forms, except Invisible Sun because holy god it’s a giant pile of stuff to put into a MU DB)
- Zombie Apocalypse (This seems like a no-brainer, pun intended.)
- Basically any legendarily old TTRPG system (Traveller, RuneQuest, Talislanta, etc).
- Dune (Yes, I’m aware there’s a Dune MUD, but a full RP game, not so much)
- Fading Suns (or any other Space L&L setting, which would yes, include Dune)
I could go on, but I’ll give other people chances to say things.
Proud Member of the Pro-Mummy Alliance
-
Fallen London would be an amazing setting. I’d jump on that immediately.
Chill would be pretty easily transferable to MUSH.
I’m surprised that the D&D/Pathfinder MUSH period was so brief; seemed like a no-brainer for the most part.
I’m shocked I haven’t seen a Helluvaverse MUSH pop up tbh.
-
I think about this all the time. If my health ever stabilizes, I’d really love to run a game again. Whenever I ponder settings, I always think “I should do something niche to be unique!” But then I wonder, “If this setting would actually draw players, why isn’t there a game for it already, or why hasn’t there been one?”
The settings I’d love to play or run, and that I’m genuinely shocked don’t have more games (or any at all), include:
-
Historical World of Darkness, specifically Victorian Age Vampire.
-
Gothic horror fantasy, along the lines of Ravenloft.
-
Dragonlance.
-
Transformers. I remember back in the day there were loads of them. Now there’s maybe one, and none are on Ares, which is really the only way I can play nowadays.
-
Buffy. The setting is so great that I’m shocked there weren’t more of these games, and there aren’t any around today.
-
Star Trek. Though after putting some serious thought into running a Star Trek game, I think I can see why there aren’t more of them.
-
Historical Fantasy: either Pirates era or ancient Greece in that God of War style.
These are the types of games that are on my mind most, and I really wish there were more of them around today!
-
-
@Raistlin said in Missed Settings:
Star Trek. Though after putting some serious thought into running a Star Trek game, I think I can see why there aren’t more of them.
Time was that you couldn’t spit without hitting a Trek MU of some kind. There was a resurgence, of a kind, when the first of the Chris Pine Trek films came about but then nothin’. I think ATS might still be bumpin’ along, but I haven’t even looked at it in years.
-
Something inspired by the Temeraire series.
-
@Raistlin said in Missed Settings:
- Buffy. The setting is so great that I’m shocked there weren’t more of these games, and there aren’t any around today.
I think this has the same problem that Firefly does: the characters are more of a draw than the setting is. For instance, I don’t want to play in the Browncoat-a-verse as much as I want to play with Jayne and Kaylie and the rest of the crew – and no, FCs aren’t enough. Likewise, I would want to play with Spike and Angel and Faith and Willow and Oz… more than in a generic-ish vampire-slaying modern (or '90s period piece) world.
-
@Roadspike said in Missed Settings:
I think this has the same problem that Firefly does: the characters are more of a draw than the setting is. For instance, I don’t want to play in the Browncoat-a-verse as much as I want to play with Jayne and Kaylie and the rest of the crew – and no, FCs aren’t enough. Likewise, I would want to play with Spike and Angel and Faith and Willow and Oz… more than in a generic-ish vampire-slaying modern (or '90s period piece) world.
This is definitely true for Buffy. Without the characters and their brand of smart-mouthed teenaged attitude, the setting is basically just Hunters Hunted for WoD. I sort of disagree a bit on Firefly, because there’s still enough unique in the setting that I would still consider playing on a game in a FC-less Firefly universe.
-
Oh crap, totally forgot this one:
LARP RULES WOD : WoD is super popular, and the LARP rules are built more for large groups of players, so it’s confused me to this day why no one has attempted to run a WoD MU using the LARP systems (with the exception of the original Masquerade ruleset, that’s hot flying garbage and so I understand why it never became a MU back then).
-
I’m surprised, and have been for years now, that the Shadowhunters series isn’t a super popular world setting. It seems to have all the popular tropes… Vampires, Werewolves, Angels, Demons, Warlocks, Humans, and Hunters… It’s big on action and adventure, it’s full of epic dramas. It can be based out of literally ANY large and popular city. It always seemed to me like it would make a popular and easy setting, but I’ve never seen it done.
-
@Jenn Yeah! There also was this big influx of games that were centered around YA fiction back in the day, which I feel like would have been shortly before the time that the Shadowhunters TV series came out. There was that The 100 MUSH, then someone did a Percy Jackson game a little while after the movies came out, it does seem like a missed opportunity with Shadowhunters. The whole Mortal Instruments universe has largely been missed altogether, really.
I also want to cosign the Fading Suns reference above, I would play that so hard I would be at an alpha build of the game and suffer through it to be able to play a Charioteer.
One thing that’s kind of a headscratcher, IMO, is the lack of a proper run at a Warhammer Fantasy or 40k setting. Age of Sigmar is also now pretty fleshed out to the point that you could have a solid fantasy experience with that.
And fantasy games in general, actually! And particularly for me, I think fantasy without the reliance on the L&L pastiche. D&D and Pathfinder were mentioned and, yeah, it’s kind of odd that there haven’t been a bunch of Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Golarian, etc. games. I seem to recall there was that one Dragonlance game back in the early 00s set in the Age of Mortals, and there was… Treywinter? Was that the name of it? It was a D&D 3e MUSH that was running around the same time.
-
@Raistlin said in Missed Settings:
either Pirates era
The pirates we think of when we say pirates (“The Flying Gang”) were a very specific and brief period (about 1716 until quite specifically 1726) and very few people know this or understand what was going on.
(I am running this tabletop with CoC d20. But on a MU, the little history lessons are not so welcome.)
There’s also the whole “we’re on a boat!” problem. Which is a mild pain playing tabletop when one player can’t make a session and you’re wondering what the heck their character is doing, since they couldn’t leave, but is a constant challenge on a MU. At least, in a period setting where ships are just not very big.
-
In the vein of Fallen London, Sunless Skies. It’s literally Fallen London IN SPAAACE! Empress Victoria got tired of being in the Neath. She also decided to build her own Clockwork Sun. Its light isn’t…right. Also, it hates us and is going insane. Spoilers: https://thefifthcity.fandom.com/wiki/The_Clockwork_Sun
Continuing down that avenue, Cultist Simulator! Let’s murder each other to gain immortality!
-
I sat and thought about it for a sec, and wondered “why has no one made a Magic The Gathering MUSH?”
-
@Hobbie said in Missed Settings:
“why has no one made a Magic The Gathering MUSH?”
My guess at an answer is: Because everyone on the game would throw a fit if they didn’t have a Planewalker Spark.
Proud Member of the Pro-Mummy Alliance
-
@MisterBoring said in Missed Settings:
- Zombie Apocalypse (This seems like a no-brainer, pun intended.)
I’ve always wanted to run a zombie game but feel people would get bored of it quickly.
-
@catzilla I think you’d have to really really focus on the community building aspect of “this world has died, we must rebuild it” and less on the actual zombies. All of my favorite zombie media is just really interesting human drama and analogues to real world societal stuff punctuated by extreme gore.
Proud Member of the Pro-Mummy Alliance
-
@MisterBoring The first step would be finding or making tweezers so we can all have our generally attractive PBs.
-
I am surprised there hasn’t been a primitive fantasy setting, a tribal culture trying to survive amongst the fantasy monsters and the ruins of previous civilizations. Though this would probably need to be more RPI-ish because it’s begging for coded survival mechanics, like hunting, fishing, cooking, weapon crafting, clothing making, etc.
