What anime/manga would make a good RPing world?

[Dracos]

I think what Bjorn is getting at is that generally, when you look for settings for holding a game within, you look for settings that are rich in detail, thus allowing you to skip over having to do all that footwork and focus on the game aspects more than the geography, race structure, thematics, et cetra.  A GM who is putting a ton of work into creating the meat of the world setting might as well almost go the rest of the way and create the whole setting himself for that fine level of tuning.  There's almost no point to using a setting if it isn't reducing the work level necessary to create an engaging game.  That's the entire purpose of setting books: they contain already completed footwork on the design of a world in such a manner as to give the GM already completed tools to build his worldset with.  If the tools lack meat to them, they are pretty pointless tools to use.  I'm working with Final Fantasy right now.  I selected it for several reasons, chief among them the fact that it had a map already defined and a generally loose setting that provided enough detail to make my job maintaining a fesiable worldset easier while having flexibility to easily be wrapped around the players.  In other words, it was selected as a setting because it was useful for making my job easier while still providing an enjoyable experience.  Dune used the Sailor Moon universe, which provided him with fleshed out villians, a general timeline of events, and several other things, but also required significant amounts of work on his end.  Forgetten Realms is an often used setting because it provides a very stable set of tools for the GM to weave his tale with.

Basically, it can't be reduced to simply 'work or no work' but 'what are the best tools for the task of providing the experience the game is meant to be?'  Can the job be done with inferior tools?  Yes, at the cost of more work, time, and energy on the GM side for a similar experience.

Dracos

[Bjorn]

I gotta agree. Manga are more ideal, I would think, -because- of the lack of detail. You can still have an entertaining gaming experience with Sailor Moon, As in our game, if the GM puts sufficient work and imagination into fleshing things out. (He did. >_>)

One thing I should clarify: I was mostly answering from the perspective that Brian set forth above; that is, manga/anime settings as simple alternatives to home-brewn settings.  I agree that manga settings can make for good campaigns.  However, I also think that the amount of effort required to do so is not in general much less than the effort required to make a home-brew work.

Honestly, I think the Sailor Moon games prove my point.  There have been two SM games, both successful.  One used the canon characters, opponents, and motivations, though obviously with differences.  The other (the future Crystal Kingdom game), while inspired by SM, was essentially a GM-created.

My point is: I don't think there is a middle ground for SM.  If you use the actual settings of the manga/anime but don't use the canon characters, you've got nothing (unless you want to RP some schmucks desperately dodging youma attacks until the magical artillery skirts show up).  If you want to use the Moon Kingdom, which is interesting in and of itself, the problem you have is that the manga doesn't give you much at all beyond the fact of its existence, which means that you, as GM, have to sit down and come up with the relevant details.   It might be easier than coming up with everything yourself, but it's certainly not "pre-made".

(Another good example is Tenchi Muyo.  The interesting part about Tenchi's setting is the space aspect, of which the OAVs include just about nothing.  And if you stay on Earth, you've got nothing unless you're a Masaki.)

It's also true that books aren't a panacea.  Just like manga and anime, they tend to mostly be character driven.  The Wheel of Time is a good example of a lavishly developed setting that's mostly useless, since it revolves entirely around characters that feature in the books themselves.   Basically, the events of the novels tie up anything interesting that might have happened since the Breaking of the World.

What you want, in this sort of game, is a book/manga/anime/movie that is not character-, but setting-driven.  A good example of this is Larry Niven's Known World; it's richly developed, expansive enough to accomodate any number of changes, and most importanly, massive enough that even canon characters cannot effect significant change.  Just like the real world, it does not have Chosen Ones of Prophecy for whom the world stagnates until they show up and reshape the entire fabric of reality.  

Examples of settting-driven stories are pretty rare in all media.  You see it most frequently in science fiction and pulp fantasy.  However, I don't know that I've ever read a setting-driven manga.

Er.  I think I've gotten a bit long-winded.  Anyways, the short of it is: I'm not trying to say that manga/anime-derived games are impossible, nor are they destined to be terrible.  I just don't think they're easy to do, and that there are settings outside that genre which are easier to convert to a game.

[Bjorn]

I'm working with Final Fantasy right now.

While I think Drac and I are in agreement, I just want to point out that FF1 is a funky example.  To wit, it's a character-driven game where the characters had no character.  Every other Final Fantasy game made has the same advantages in terms of setting that Drac listed (developed world map, enough details in the setting to give an outline but enough freedom to accomodate players), but a game based around, say, FF7 would either be horrible or require a ton of effort on the part of the GM.

[Dracos]

You're correct.  It is funky. >_>;  If I had a personal example that was better at the moment I would've used it.  Your insight there is good though, that extra specific fact (Character driven with undefined characters) is part of why I wanted it.  If I wanted to do it as a setting for anything aside for that type of adventure, it'd be worthless.

Dracos

[Bean Bandit]

One thing I should clarify: I was mostly answering from the perspective that Brian set forth above; that is, manga/anime settings as simple alternatives to home-brewn settings. I agree that manga settings can make for good campaigns. However, I also think that the amount of effort required to do so is not in general much less than the effort required to make a home-brew work.

Ahhh. I see. ^^;

Well, I have to agree, in spirit. Personally, My experience, such as it is has shown me how limited my imagination is, so really, even a skeleton to build on is a great deal less work right off the bat. But then, I'm kinda lazy to start with. >_>

[thepanda]

The Wheel of Time is a good example of a lavishly developed setting that's mostly useless, since it revolves entirely around characters that feature in the books themselves.   Basically, the events of the novels tie up anything interesting that might have happened since the Breaking of the World.

Agreed, and yet there is a WoT pen and paper RPG. Strange but true.

What you want, in this sort of game, is a book/manga/anime/movie that is not character-, but setting-driven.

I both totally agree with this, but disagree with it as well. Finding a worldset where the canon characters don't change the world every few volumes or are the only ones who can combat the villians is definately something you have to consider. But I think there is more to it than that. I think, given even a vaguely defined world, one can have fun without having to rebuild the entire universe, just from unsing the themes and genre of the original.

Hm, that's somewhat muddled so let me give an example. Ghost in the Shell comes to mind. Shirow created this huge microcosm. It only takes place in Japan, and not really all over Japan to boot, but even so it still manages to be this huge worldset in what is geographically a small area. He manages to give a general feel and discussion about the governing aspects of it, but the rest is left to the artwork to convey. Even so, one could easily build a cyberpunk campaign in that worldset because that's the genre of that worldset.

Of course, one could make the arguement that the story isn't character driven but I'd disagree. Just because something is character driven doesn't mean that the world revolves around those characters. The story might, but the world does not.

I admit that it is a little difficult to find manga like this, but that's why you look around for something that works.

On the other hand, there are plenty of book worlds that revolve nearly completely around the protagonists, and yet they still work. The Dragonlance world, Krynn, comes to mind. How often has the status quo been shaken up in the books? Gods? No Gods? Dragons? Magic? No magic? And there are a whole host of things that changed so rapidly in the books that it boggles the mind, but still its a workable campaign world.

Examples of settting-driven stories are pretty rare in all media.  You see it most frequently in science fiction and pulp fantasy.  However, I don't know that I've ever read a setting-driven manga.

The thing is, I view manga as a medium. Sci-fi, horror, adventure, ect; these are all genres expressed within the medium.  The only real difference being that they rely on visuals to express the worldset rather than pages of discription. I can see where this would cause more work for the GM, though, as he'd have to interpret the artwork and make something usable with it.

Hm. I can see where you're coming from, though.

[Bjorn]

Agreed, and yet there is a WoT pen and paper RPG. Strange but true.

Have you played it?  From all I've heard, it sucks as much as I'd expect it to, but I have no first-hand experience.

I both totally agree with this, but disagree with it as well. Finding a worldset where the canon characters don't change the world every few volumes or are the only ones who can combat the villians is definately something you have to consider. But I think there is more to it than that. I think, given even a vaguely defined world, one can have fun without having to rebuild the entire universe, just from unsing the themes and genre of the original.

Admittedly, I'm over-simplifying by dividing stories into "character-driven" and "setting-driven."  Ghost in the Shell is an excellent example of a character-driven story that would make for a decent RPG setting.

So, to put things more accurately: what you want is a story where the setting (not the story per se) does not revolve around the canon characters.   GitS is character-driven, but the setting itself is indepenent of the actions of its protagonists.

On the other hand, there are plenty of book worlds that revolve nearly completely around the protagonists, and yet they still work.

This is a poor example, I'd say.  Dragonlance works because TSR/WotC put tons of work into developing Dragonlance into a full-fledged campaign setting which comes after (rather than being at the same time as) the books.  If all you had were the books, it would be much more challenging to set up.  

Similarly, you can make a good campaign setting out of Tenchi Muyo.  The only difference is that TST/WotC did your groundwork for you with Dragonlance.

The thing is, I view manga as a medium. Sci-fi, horror, adventure, ect; these are all genres expressed within the medium.

Very true, and I was unfairly confounding the two categories.  Nonetheless, with that caveat, I'll stand by my point: most of the stories of various genres that I've seen done in the media of manga/anime haven't been convenient for RPG settings.

Bjorn

[Dracos]

Agreed, and yet there is a WoT pen and paper RPG. Strange but true.

Not having played it, I'd give the instinctual warning that the existence of a pen and paper RPG dedicated to the setting has no relevence whatsoever as to whether the setting actually has merit for use.  A large amount of them are simply pieces of crap, the mapping from the setting itself to the 'rpg' tending to be superficial at best as they attempt to cash in on the brand name of the book, movie, story, whatever.

Of course, one could make the arguement that the story isn't character driven but I'd disagree. Just because something is character driven doesn't mean that the world revolves around those characters. The story might, but the world does not.

But that is what it pretty much means.  It either is driven by the characters or it is watching a certain set of characters in a far grander setting.  The difference in focus is pretty obvious.  Azumanga Daioh was a character driven tale.  Certainly there was a worldset around it, but it was largely undefined outside of what was needed for that part of the character driven story.  That tends to be the large difference: A lack of superfluous elements(No, I can't phrase it much better, even if this is a poor phrasing) in a character driven story outside of what is necessary to give context to the actions of the characters.  The world, in other words, is built in context of the characters, instead of the characters acting in context of the world they are in.  A subtle distinction, but that, to my mind, is what the difference between character driven and not character driven stories are.  If the world (or more specifically camera) isn't revolving around those characters, then it doesn't really seem to fit that paradigm.

On the other hand, there are plenty of book worlds that revolve nearly completely around the protagonists, and yet they still work. The Dragonlance world, Krynn, comes to mind. How often has the status quo been shaken up in the books? Gods? No Gods? Dragons? Magic? No magic? And there are a whole host of things that changed so rapidly in the books that it boggles the mind, but still its a workable campaign world.

This is highly mistaken.  The dragonlance game setting was built setting first, and then first conveyed through the stories of the earliest games played in it by the creators of the setting.  Certainly it evolved somewhat based on the character decisions, but that doesn't change the fact that a lush setting was considered and structured out with the intent of being usable for a long variety of events and then later fleshed out through the observations of the characters.  The vast majority of defining stories in it generally sit at the shifting points between the 'ages' they already defined for the setting.  Naturally though, since the setting was already defined and worked on first, there is plenty of avaliable information if, perhaps, you wanted to run a story of minotaur pirates in the time of the Kingpriest.  Notably the primary 'series' of Dragonlance covered a hundred year span that covered pretty much an entire age and two or three generations worth of characters.

Even assuming that it was character driven, then the setting is only defined by virtue of how many books were written in it from so many different characters unconnected, which would naturally create an emergence effect that when combined with a general timeline and world map would create a usable setting.  Most manga and anime lack anywhere near the verbosity of expression that the dragon lance series had.  Owning pretty much every book in it prior to the fifth age stuff, we're talking on the tens of thousands of pages scale.  There isn't a manga in existence that even remotely comes close to having the expansiveness to create that sort of emerging setup.  They cover usually a single story.  Maybe two or three.  But I cannot think of a single one that counts it in the fifty to a hundred range.

Dracos

[thepanda]

Agreed, and yet there is a WoT pen and paper RPG. Strange but true.

Have you played it?  From all I've heard, it sucks as much as I'd expect it to, but I have no first-hand experience.

Nope. Not a worldset I'm particularly thrilled to game in.

[Brian]

There is also (just an FYI) a Tenchi RPG book for BESM.  As well as ElHazard.

I'd like it more if I liked BESM more ... but I DO have the BESM -> HERO conversion rules ... somewhere.

[Carthrat]

BESMd20 > BESM standard. As long as you tamper with the rules a little. At least then, the balance curve isn't so bleh. >_>

[baka]

The Wheel of Time is a good example of a lavishly developed setting that's mostly useless, since it revolves entirely around characters that feature in the books themselves.   Basically, the events of the novels tie up anything interesting that might have happened since the Breaking of the World.

I've done some roleplaying in the WoT world. Nothing system-based, but it was a lot of fun, and did work reasonably well. Basically there was a large community of players who played anything from Aes Sedai, Asha'man, Warders to lost Seanchen trying to avoid discovery, who played in games/threads both large and small. It almost amount to collective writing, but it was very driven by each players personal character(s).

[Edward]

Oh, and if you could pull off Geobreeders I would willingly become your bitch. Seriously.

I'd sell a kidney if you'd run it.

Edward goes in search of Jessikai.

What?  I didn't say it would be my kidney.  ^_^

[Edward]

The points on setting versus characters are good.  But there are also series where it's difficult to do anything not directly tied to the main story - Evangelion or RahXephon, for example.

As to what could work, let me suggest:

Appleseed.  While the focus is the not-so-utopic Olympus, there's several other countries out there with thier own agendas, and Badlands where it a struggle to survive.  Even within Olympus, there are a lot of groups and individuals with their own goals.  Characters could be human, cyborg, bioroid, or creatures like Artemis.

Bubblegum Crisis.  The action doesn't have to take place in Tokyo as Genom has a worldwide presence.

Cowboy Bebop.  There are a lot of stories that can be told and a lot of different planets to tell them on.  Bits of rock from the failed Gate experiment can make for rather odd maguffins.

El Hazard.  There are both the Phantom Tribe and the Bugrom as potential villains, plus the humans are not completely unified.  The Eye of God can justify pulling in other races as villains, allies, or wildcards and can provide a justification for a large variety of PCs.  There are probably lost cities to explore and lost artifacts to be found as well.

Escaflowne.  I suspect this would best be set after the events of the series, as the alliance could easily fall apart after the defeat of the main villain.  Not that his country couldn't make a comeback, of course.   There's also a lot of different races the PCs could be from, which would appeal to a lot o people.

Geobreeders.  Did I mention this one before?  ^_^  There's plenty of straightforward action, but there are different groups and agendas among the humans and even the Phantom Cats aren't completely unified.

Patlabor.  Tokyo isn't the only city with labors or the problem of labor crime.