Four Tabletop RPG Licenses That Should Have FPS Games – and Four Insights from Those Choices
I’ve always felt more immersed playing Master Chief than any CRPG character. The twitch factor and first person perspective feels enough like physicality to make me feel like I’m him. I even have moments of existential wonderment when a Brute’s in my sight. Who is this person? I’ll never know. Bang.
The Halo series has a rich background and good enough plotting to provide the illusion that as Master Chief, my lone operations are part of something bigger. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for many first person games. For me, Mirror’s Edge was an example of a game with great play but a dull plot (the fascist super Parkour conspiracy!). FPS games need the tabletop RPG setting’s strengths: story events with gravity, the illusion of a bigger world and a wealthy idea mine to compensate for the fact that story mode is not always a high priority — so the more inspirations around, the easier it is to do it right. Twitchy RPGs and RPG-like FPS games are improving too, but the empty and silly aspects of many examples (like open world games) demonstrate that there’s room for improvement. So let’s explore five tabletop RPG settings that could make great FPS games.
Dungeons and Dragons: Warforged
D&D is a huge license, and its computer game implementations usually choke on the sheer size of it — and invite comparisons with tabletop play that never go well, even when the games are good. Let’s cut it back; you’re not playing a party or a guy in a party. You’re one of Eberron’s warforged, magically programmed for battle, revived from an Adamantine crypt by adventurers. and bound to serve their master because of the artifact he carries (you’ll kick that guy’s ass later). Yeah, that feels like Halo, but Halo rocks.
Advantages: The enormous D&D bestiary is yours to fight. As a warforged your unnatural toughness is believable. You have limited item slots built into your body, so no scratching your head at inventory or wondering what hyperspace your items disapear to. Even your interface can be immersive, because maybe warforged do see a tactical display: glowing runes instead of a helmet HUD. An integral crossbow with magic quarrels takes care of the ranged weapon thing to start, though you’ll find stuff as you go, too.
Vampire: Solomon Birch
You’re God’s own vampire, blessed with supernatural strength, quickness, and a series of occult rites that might be revelations from the Lord Himself, all to punish the wicked – in this case, a demonic conspiracy that runs from mortals to Kindred to . . . whoever you meet at the climax. Once again, we’ve cut back from the whole World of Darkness. Hell, there’s no character creation, but that’s okay, because Solomon Birch is enough. Just don’t have him talk too much in cutscenes.
Advantages: Birch’s Daeva clan and Lancea Sanctum sect give him the powers and motives of a tough FPS protagonist. Celerity is bullet time. His organization provides rites that he uses as between scene buffs. Vampire: Bloodlines had some excellent concepts for making use of mortals, so let’s revisit those, too.
Aeternal Legends: Knights
Yes, I went and did it – suggested a game that I publish in a blatant example of bias! It’s a good thing that Aeternal Legends (yes, a link, but I publish it because I like it!) really does work for this. Now unlike the other examples I wouldn’t stick to one character, but would go with a selection of four preset Strength Sphere users (Knights): one for each Clade. This restriction justifies fighting ability and means it’s easy to tweak story mode for each character. The Ministry charges you with destroying one of the Swords of Yesterday – but it’s in the hand of a rising Dark Lord. Along the way you’ll fight subway pirates, slaves of the clockwork realm and evil Legends.
Advantages: Aeternal Legends‘ power system is easy to adapt to FPS play and would create definite changes in tactics based on your choice of Knight – something that can be spun into team-based PVP, too. The setting is at once familiar and includes enough hidden world stuff to let you design wierd and wonderful levels without straining credulity or lining a place with crates.
Talislanta: Thrall
Talislanta is kind of the Dying Earth’s meathead, metalhead cousin — that’s a compliment, by the way. It may not be as witty, but it is quietly imaginative and satisfyingly rewards brute force in a way Jack Vance’s decadent wonderland shouldn’t. You’ll play a Thrall: a hulking, tattooed soldier that moves from galdiatorial challenges to swashbuckling across the decks of windships, guided along the way by one of the mysterious Black Savants.
Advantages: Thralls are a warrior people, so suspension of disbelief is built in. You’ll believe that a tattooed man can kill 100 ice giants! You’d have a signature spikey close combat weapon (the Garde) and enough strange magic to supply any FPS mainstay. Maybe you can even commandeer windships and mounts. But in the end, the sheer variety of the setting and its strange but accessible nature makes Talislanta a winning license. This isn’t just look and feel, either; every group in the setting is chock full of story motivations, from Quan nobles after a cheap thrill to the Xambrians and their big grudge against wizards/Toquarans. (In fact, Xambrians are misunderstood violent loners, making them good FPS types, too.)
Lessons Learned
I got a few ideas out of writing the above. I’m coming at this as an FPS player who vastly prefers story play, so take it in that context.
1) Don’t Eat the Whole Sandwich – But Let ‘Em See the Tomatos
In each entry I cut down the options not just out of respect for the format, but because many things have impact in backstory and suggestion, not integration. When I’m playing Master Chief Halo lets me know enough to think of a whole infrastructure backing me up, and a rich setting that helps me ignore the restrictions of each level. Cutting down to one or a few preset characters also provides immediate motivation (I know my job and perspective) without making any of it seem petty and isolated from the greater world.
2) Settings Should Inspire Neat Levels
Crates and shopping mall features are the bane of modern-era and futuristic levels. Every setting should inspire interesting level designs. (This is weak in my Vampire choice, but let’s plug some underground Belial’s Brood temples in there). D&D‘s assets are self-evident. Aeternal Legends has lots of neat hidden worlds a la Hellboy II and Harry Potter.
3) We’ve Got to Get Bigger Guns!
You need an excuse for interesting ranged weapons. Modern and futuristic games have this in the bag, but it requires imagination to apply this to fantasy worlds. Warforged can get Predator-like shoulder crossbows, so they work. Talislanta has lots of oddball magic – enough for gun substitutes, though I admit it’s the weakest entry in the list. Of course, you could get by this with ranged magic as well.
4) One Cool Thing Per Character
Every protagonist should have one cool thing they can do by virtue of their background. Knights can be super accurate, bust through armor and so on, depending on the character’s Clade (fantasy “race”). Solomon Birch has magic and Disciplines and is easily the best example in the article. Our warforged protagonist can magically upgrade him/her/itself. I must admit I missed the boat with the Thrall, though.
That’s it. What tabletop RPG do you think would make for a great FPS?
Hunter: The Reckoning wouldn’t be bad, but the attempts that were made to turn these into shooters a) weren’t FPS and b) were lame to control. These have the requisite creepy stuff to shoot, has all the modern weapons you want (but you likely need guns mostly) and you have the occasional nifty power that helps you survive. It also gives an opportunity for you to have the AI of the game use your allies, giving the appropriate amount of horror/shock when a vampire/werewolf/mage completely destroys one of them in one shot. Plus bosses galore.
Every other option didn’t have enough ranged stuff to make it fun since getting up-close-and-personal in FPS sucks (that’s why the bash in Halo is almost an instant-kill).