Urban Fantasy Systems

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Aaaand those are all my strictly modern pictures

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There's also Unknown Armies, though the setting isn't what you would consider traditional in terms of fantasy.

Still, you can summon dead presidents to be your stand, transform into a fashionable wolf, freak out whenever you see the number 333, and theres's an entire school of magic devoted to either being Ryan Gosling in Drive or a Mad Max character.

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Y'know, I've seen the occasional Unknown Armies thread, but they're always so random. I guess that's the point? Can you even have a long campaign off that?

Savage Worlds is universal, its magic system is actually really balanced in a modern setting and it does high-action and gunplay extremely well.

Also I ran several nWoD campaigns and pretty much all of them were action-heavy instead of backstabbing. The Cowboy Bebop crossover where one PC rammed a werewolf out the back of his ship with a Harley to the face springs to mind.

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Balance is definitely great. Is there a specific book or ruleset for modern fantasy I can look up?

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They're not random, Unknown Armies just has very flexible lore and actively encourages homebrew.

The point of Unknown Armies in general is everything happens for a reason but the journey is figuring out the reason.

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Unknown Armies has a rep for being super weird, but it was mostly just postmodern, which sadly meant that it's big ideas were obsolete before the book was even off the printers. At it's base, it was magic from obsession, and obsession with generally modern things. So...magic from always watching your one favorite TV show at the same time every night, for example, or magic from getting really drunk. There's a new edition out, and i haven't looked at it yet but it might be kinda cool.

As for system recommendations? Check out Monster of the Week. One of the best *World games, really well done, a good mix of Buffy, Supernatural and Dresden Files.

Just the corebook and maybe the Horror Companion. Fantasy Companion sounds good on the surface but it's very, very focused on classic D&D-and-Tolkien medieval fantasy.
The Horror Companion is great even if you aren't doing a horror-focused game: the stuff for draining magical energy from the dying, casting rituals and necromancy is great for most games with an emphasis on magic.

I came close to running a Harlem Quest-meets-Miami Vice game with the system but got distracted by other games.

Oh no, I know it's not actually random. I guess a better way would be to say the entire discussion on Unknown Armies is always inside references an outsider like me couldn't get.

The new edition is fantastic, I've played through two short campaigns already, and I highly recommend it.

Also Unknown Armies being dated is no longer a thing as the new edition is set in 2015, and it continues the metaplot.

If you're looking for urban fantasy that's more action based than political intrigue Unknown Armies is basically your game as long as you like most of the fantasy being about modern occultism.

I was actually considering running an urban fantasy campaign, simply by using a regular fantasy system and refluffing it.
"It's still swords and magic, but there are also skyscrapers and smartphones now".

Tell me, why would this be a bad idea?

See d20 Modern. It just plain works horribly badly, especially with guns added to the mix.

>See d20 Modern
Perhaps you could elaborate?
I don't want guns in the mix, and I'm now thinking that I don't have my subgenres straight.
I'm basically considering pic related. Orcs and elves, dragons and wizards, princesses and quests mushed together with present day elements.

Corporate skyscrapers surrounded by a fortified wall and protected by knights with ties, standing on a whimsical cliff near the shore. Basically just a mash-up.

So I don't see why I need different rules when the core of the setting is still fantasy.

Have you looked into the Harry Dresden RPG?

It's FATE-based. The original books were some of the worst FATE ones out there - great fluff, but so many fucking aspects and whatnot, in a game that's supposed to be simple and easy to understand. I hear the updated one is better.

Scion is a good transition. Still based in the WoD system for the players and you to understand, but you play demigods with assloads of power. Only play the first book, it gets stupidly complex in books 2 and 3.

Forgot to mention, OP, but if you want to know what the Dresden Files is like is actually a picture of Harry Dresden (though that exact scene is not one I'm familiar with).

This is the opening of the Dresden Files book 'Blood Rites'.

I don't know if there's a specific system for that, tobehonest. Most of the time when people want urban fantasy they want fantasy elements in our world. You just want "D&D + some modern aesthetic", which you can have by homebrewing a setting and using D&D.

Okay, that opening IS a pretty damn apt description of my group. So check out the most recent editions of Dresden Files and Unknown Armies, then? Awesome

Found muddycolors.blogspot.ca/2013/10/harry-dresden-part-1.html

Commissioned work of Dresden and a random Denarian.

this is coming out soon. very heavy combat focus, extremely heavy battle focus in general

1d4chan.org/wiki/Purgatoria

Oh hey, that person also did the zombie T-Rex picture. Great work.

Never heard of this, thanks

This.
If you want a modern setting you're going to have to have a damn good reason why nobody's developed gunpowder-based weapons, especially when there's FUCKING DRAGONS that'd be perfect to use them on if they get uppity and start rampaging.

Just... I don't know, fucking do an Eberron campaign.

Huh, Veeky Forums actually kind of got shit done. Looks a tad convoluted, though

World of Darkness can be pretty high-action, but it veers off into absurdity quickly and feels very 90s.

Chronicles of Darkness (what was formerly the New World of Darkness) is great if you like mystery and horror, though some of the games (Werewolf and Hunter spring to mind) can get action-packed pretty quick.

The Dresden Files RPG runs off of FATE and is quite good.

Urban Shadows is a Powered by the Apocalypse take on what's essentially the World of Darkness. Monsterhearts is the same, but os laser-focused on high school romance and drama.

Delta Green is about the govern,ent conspiracy that fights the Cthulhu Mythos and is an incredible horror game.

Unknown Armies is about "postmodern magick" and being the people insane enough to literally change the nature of reality. It feels like Tim Powers: the RPG.

>Urban Shadows is a Powered by the Apocalypse take on what's essentially the World of Darkness.
So what, does that make it a weird sort of halfway point between World of Darkness and Unknown Armies?

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I've been coming up with a setting that addresses that problem. Healing and shield spells are somewhat common negating most gunfire, unless the bullet is enchanted. However, enchanted bullets causes a whole slew of problems and are prone to backfiring, sometimes, quite literally. Any type of gun is very difficult and costly to enchant due to all the mix of parts within it. Want to enchant a gun to shoot ice bullets? Hope the wizard knows what he's doing or he'll just make the firing pin enchanted and the whole gun will just be a popsicle when fired. Melee or bows are much easier to enchant, since it's basically just a slab of iron or wood as far as magic is concerned.

I got some very good mileage out of the Dresden Files RPG. Running Mage: the Ascension now, really love the setting but its a bit early to talk about the mechanics. That being said, I do like the WoD base a lot.

>Scion
Single worst system I've ever played.

You could try Nemesis by Greg Stolze who also made Unknown Armies. Here are some reviews on it:
rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13330.phtml

rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12557.phtml

Also anyone got a link to Unknown Armies 3e?

Is that the version that only just finished its Kickstarter?

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This works pretty well for most everything, but I've found it most useful for things like either generic fantasy, urban fantasy, or GTA-styled criminal underworld games. If you're curious, I also made a small module on Old West-styled quick-draw gunfights if you have a player who just NEEDS to be magical Doc Holiday.

Actually, since you're asking for the sake of urban fantasy, here's an expanded spellbook that I made by taking all its spells and adding some that either I or my friends made up or that I got from looking at other fan-made Md6 modules.

Have fun, mate.

Oh shit, I should specify--this comes with a minor rule change. Instead of Concentration acting as a standard Action added (for the sake of Multiple Action Penalty), some spells are more intense to maintain, adding -2D instead of the standard -1D per Action past the first per round.

The system? Not great.

The ideas behind it? Super great.

I'm hoping 2e will be better, but seeing as it's Obsidian Path I know that's a pipe dream.

Not OP, but thanks for that

>shield spells and magical healing
The modern answer to this is full-auto or buckshot. There was a .22 SMG originally intended for prison guard use because of its low-power round, however they found its full-auto ability and very large capacity meant it could shred body armour with repeated hits, assuming the firer could keep it on target.

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GURPS springs to mind.

For a certain kind of person, it always does.

The best kind, right?

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Hey most of opp's latest stuff has been great. I'm actually looking forward to it based off of the previews we have back from when it was called sardonyx

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Unknown Armies 3rd Edition is fixing a lot of that by giving GMs and Players tools and instructions for what exactly they're supposed to do in the world. The biggest problem with UA is that it's giving you the coolest and most interesting sandbox you've ever seen, but not telling you what you're supposed to do with it. If you're creative then that's not a problem since you can make whatever stuff you want, but if you aren't that great at coming up with your own story hooks then it's a problem.

In UA3, everything is based around your cabal, i.e. your party's overarching goal. You basically create your cabal before you even make your characters, so you never end up with a "your characters all meet at a bar" situation. Instead, you have a stated goal from the beginning. Maybe you want to promote the renewal and protection of a particular neighborhood in Chicago, or maybe you're a Scooby-Doo type mystery gang, or maybe you're trying to promote the Ascension of a particular Archetype.

From there, the GM creates the game around the goals of the cabal, either forwarding them or trying to thwart them. Stolze created a concrete, mechanical system for a Cabal achieving its short term and long term goals that should seriously improve the overall game experience.

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That actually sounds immensely helpful

But 3E is only just out of Kickstarter and only has a basic outline available, right?

It's not actually an outline, it's the full rules that are available. It's just that they are... unedited rules. My group ran through lots of confusing shit in character creation in our 3on shots done with the game, but outside of character crration things run smooth.

Also there's an entire book dedicated to just throwing as much lore at you as possible in a reference manual form, it's fantastic.

All the rules are out already? That's great news, thanks

Then I will repeat the other user's shameless asking for the pdf if anyone has it to hand.

Link?

Second, my Google-fu is week