So umm, how does adapting work into rpg form work exactly?

I've just been thinking about it, there are lots of tabletop and pen & paper rpgs based on many books and movies and tv shows and stuff, but it doesn't really always make sense to me. Some things just seem like kind of bad idea to adapt to this media. Admitedly, I don't know much about tabletop and pen & paper rpgs, but still.

Like for example, I was thinking of things that had gotten adaption that I had heard of and I realized I've never heard of(note: I could be totally wrong since I know nothing about these since I don't even play tabletop and pen & paper rpgs) any anime/manga based one. Of course thats probably because they are by Japanese, but when I was thinking about it, I don't even have any idea how you would adapt any shonen based series into that form. I mean, most of shonen fighting series are based on everyone having special ability that is gimmick of some sort and it sounds like nightmare to try to adapt something like that and still have it balanced. Kind of like I'm not sure why you would bother to try to do superhero rpg based on dc or marvel stuff since same thing would happen. Some abilities just happen to be more powerful than other ones and since there are like too many possible variations.. Yeah. But yeah, if there is well balanced superhero rpg based on rules of dc/marvel... Well, I still don't really see how you would balance super human abilities and stuff like being really good with guns.

So yeah, how the heck someone adapts licensed work into rpg form? It sounds just easier to create world from scratch than trying to bend someone's work rules so that you can make them into a game. Heck, only reason why you would want to adapt book into game would be because of money gotten from people who would like to play part in that book's world, but if book's setting doesn't allow good mechanics without changing them to almost unrecognizable, isn't that kind of pointless?

And sorry if I'm very ignorant about this, since I probably am.

(Note: I haven't read any DC-based RPG's, and the only Marvel one I read is around thirty years old and really doesn't handle balance well, but I have given in-depth study to Mutants And Masterminds second edition, which attempts to emulate comic book tropes in a D20-based context and so will be my example here.)

Usually, yes, the goal is to make money off fans of the original work. The amount of effort that goes into this varies by company; some will attempt to produce the best work possible within the set boundaries, others will whip off a five-page conversion of their basic core rules and call it good.

Both of your examples are actually quite easy to handle, especially in a sufficiently playtested* point buy system. The shonen guys pick from either a list of balanced powers, or a list of powers that aren't quite balanced but the guys with beefier moves are paying more character points for them. Likewise, in a DC setting, "tough enough to ignore bullets" should be a lot more expensive than "is good with bullets".

Assuming you'd do DC as an expansion to a system like 2e Mutants and Masterminds, I can build a guy with a maxed-out shooting ability and a decent scale handgun for about ten points, maybe 20-25 if my handgun is actually a hyper-buffed megadamage Device hand cannon firing piercing rounds and fluffed as "I'm just that good with my lucky weapon". As for a Superman figure who has 10 ranks of Impervious stacked on top of his +10 from a high Constitution score, maximum base Strength, Flight 5, ten ranks of Super-Strength to pick up aircraft carriers and the like, a bit of Super-Speed and Blast 5 for his heat vision/ice breath, and attack and defence at cap, that's more than 100pts, of which I am likely to be recouping, at most, five from Kryptonite vulnerability. Most M&M games start with around 150pts to play with. That allows Shooty Guy to pick up a lot of combat tricks, skills, allies, backup and toys, while the Flying Brick will at best have a two-room apartment and a couple of skills.

There's also the "more than just combat" thing. Batman may be useless against Superman without Kryptonite, but since the Last Son of Krypton paid through the nose for super strength, super resilience, flight, heat vision and so on, Batman can buy all those wonderful toys, have more money than God, and load his detective skills through the roof. As a result, while Superman will be doing the heavy hitting in a fight scene, it's Batman who finds the enemy's lair**.

(Of course, if you want to try and get the attention of people who've actually done what you're asking about, try rpgnet. A surprising number of professional game designers hang around there.)

.*This, of course, is the usual sticking point. Game design doesn't pay very well, and that usually by the word, so it's hardly surprising many just phone it in, write something that sounds cool, and don't bother testing it. The early years of Exalted 2nd edition were particularly impressive in this regard.
.**Eigen Plot should be advised in every rulebook with hints on how to avoid it seeming contrived or stupid.

An approach I've had that helps is finding a system/setting/ruleset that has some similarities and use that as a base. Obviously some systems work better for some settings, but taking a system that has, say, a cyberpunk rule set, can make converting your own cyberpunk setting based on a work you like easier. Hell, sometimes seemingly unrelated settings employ similar mechanics.

For a Shonen/Super Powers system, I am myself partial to Savage Worlds "Necessary Evil" (Where everyone is a super villain). Savage Worlds is designed to be a blank slate easily adaptable to homebrew settings (I run a conversion of Rogue Trader on it myself). Mutants and Mastermind is also a good system

While adaptations seem to be primarily a cash grab thing, some people make them because they are fans and want to play in their favorite setting. And maybe the cash-grab adaptations that do exist suck, so they figure if they want better quality they'd better do it themselves.

I'm sure many, many properties have been given crappy adaptations that could have been, and still could be, done well by somebody who was Doing It for the Art.

There probably are some settings that just wouldn't work well for any sort of gaming. But it also depends on what the adaptation is trying to do. If you want to make a game where the PC's are supposed to be the Justice League or the Fellowship of the Ring, then either you break from "canon" or you're going to have serious balance issues because Superman and Gandalf are like super god-monsters. If you want to make it possible to play original characters in the same worlds as those groups, then it's much easier to create rules for balanced groups of characters. Especially when you look at a world like Marvel (I know even less about DC) where the mutant powers are all over the map, and there are tons of options to choose from, there seems to be no in-universe rule preventing a group of PC's from having powers that are balanced. You just have to write rules that bring that about.

For example, if you had a setting with only 3 super-powers, and A is always more powerful than B which is always more powerful than C, then you may have balance issues in mixed ABC groups, and if the setting expects mixed groups all the time then you may have a problem. But if there are 400 possible super-powers and each of them can be anywhere on the power scale, then it's easy to pick any 5 and just put them at the same power level.

edited 13th Feb '13 5:33:36 PM by ArcadesSabboth

As for Superhero rpgs, Marvel Heroic Roleplay does pretty well, not by being balanced, but by making balance almost a non-issue. Black Widow, despite being an ordinary human, can still contribute meaningfully to the game, even alongside Lightning Bruisers like Hulk and Thor.

Only real drag is that it doesn't give much of a guide for creating new characters. Although, since balance is a non-issue, stating a character would pretty much be just applying powers and special effects and hope the GM doesn't nix it.

Carefully.

Serious answer: the best way that I can think of is to use a simple system and let narrative causality and consistency direct what the players can and cannot do.

The thing that matters most is whether you're running it on a program(I.E. Maptool), offline with a battlefield(with a grid or just a ruler to determine "speed/agility"), or simply on a messageboard/forum.

Oh, or a chat room. They all work differently overall.

What about series where most interesting time period/event/whatever is the event of the work itself? I mean for example, I'd imagine that Lot R role player would want to take part in the whole ring thing. But would they want to play side characters? And if they play part of main group isn't it kind of boring since you know what is going to happen? So how can adapt such settings?

And continuing from Lot R, wizards from what I've heard are pretty godlike in Lot R so obviously it wouldn't be balanced if you could play as one. But probably someone would want to do that since magic is cool and such, so what about work that include stuff like that which can't be balanced well into game but everyone wants to play as?

I mean, kind of like if you are playing star wars rp, then wouldn't everyone want to be Jedi? Why would you want to be Han Solo instead of getting cool sword and psychic powers?

edited 20th Feb '13 11:42:13 AM by SpookyMask

Lord Of The Rings has non Wizard magic users (Necromancers, Elves, Warlocks, etc...)

Lots of Star Wars RPG offer incentives to not be be a Jedi. Soundrels like Han get various abilities and often aren't susceptible to falling to the Dark Side as readily as a Jedi or Sith can.

edited 20th Feb '13 11:44:28 AM by CobraPrime

I didn't mean gameplay balance stuff with Jedi question, I mean is there a reason to want to play as class with less cooler powers and less cool stuff overall?

Though I guess you might as well ask why people would want to play as fighters over mages... But then again, mages don't have laser swords. I think.

BTW, aren't necromancers and warlocks evil? As in evil evil and not in alignment evil.

edited 20th Feb '13 11:50:38 AM by SpookyMask

No, but Jedis aren't laser proof. Pistols have their perks (Ask all the Dead Jedis in the Prequel).

It's a sunk cost dilemma. Ressources spent learning force power, making the lightsabre viable since it requires to run into melee with a dude can be spent learning to pilot space ships, becoming a crack shot, getting all sorts of cool abilities (Sneak attacks, trick shots, etc...)

Some are. But Lot R has plenty of good magic users too. Elrond, Galadriel, Aragorn's ancestors, etc...

edited 20th Feb '13 11:52:07 AM by CobraPrime

Interesting does not necessarily mean epic and world changing in proportions. It will be interesting indeed, for example, to play as a Gondor soldier to see the events in a normal soldiers point of view and look at how the big event impact "small" people personally. That's how most dramas and stories are told: how things too big to control impact people (disaster stories, war stories, etc).

I think if somebody wanted to play a wizard, Middle-earth would not be the setting for them. There are plenty of fantasy games in which you can play a magic-user with super-powers without being a game-breaking angelic messenger from the gods. (Or else play a Sidereal Exalt.)

And I can't imagine wanting to just re-hash the story of Lot R, which has already been told very expertly as a novel. I'd far rather explore Middle-earth from the new perspective, of a new minor character and what big historical events were like for them. Or explore some time period with little canon information.

edited 21st Feb '13 2:00:24 PM by ArcadesSabboth

I remember a Star Wars d20 campaign where we all played droids.

It was awesome.

There, see Star Wars is a great example of role-playing game(s) where there's plenty to do without playing Luke and Han and re-hashing Episodes 4-6.