Are there any games that do crossovers well?

[JigokuBosatsu]

I'll preface this by saying that I am only idly mulling this over, and due to neurological shit I am just not going to be able to think too hard about it right now, so I am hoping youse guys have thought about this at some point and have ideas.

Off the top of my head two of the biggest game lines do crossover stuff- RIFTS (for Palladium) and World of Darkness (for World of Darkness). Does RIFTS succeed as a crossover despite its garbage mechanics, since Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit seems to be the whole point of the game?

And as the title states, are there any game lines that merge their individual games well? Or any single games that have a successful kitchen sink approach?

[Hicks]

Well, there's Baron Maunchausen (sp?), Hero, and Mutants and Masterminds.

[Ancient History]

RIFTS doesn't do crossovers, it does kitchen sink. There's a bit of a difference. There are vampires and werewolves and cyborgs in RIFTS, but they're not separate settings come together - it's all mixed in, and hard to separate stuff out without building your own game from scratch.

World of Darkness doesn't do crossovers well at all - it has separate gamelines that kinda-sortof-not-really have systems that operate on similar mechanics. So many of the character sheets look similar, with recognizable attributes and things, but that's about where it ends - they don't actually interact well, and if a vampire does something to a werewolf, what they roll and how it works out depends on whether they're playing a Werewolf game or a Vampire game or...whatever.

GURPS is built on the crossover concept, but recognizes that there are different settings with different assumptions of play and power levels, and the mechanics reflect that. So while yes, you can grab GURPS Werewolf: the Apocalypse and GURPS Vampire: the Masquerade and they'll work together mechanically much more nicely than in any World of Darkness game, you're still faced with 200-point vampires versus 600-point werewolves. If that works for you, then you get to design your own game from there - because GURPS provides you the lego bricks, not necessarily the diagrams.

Mutants and Masterminds is...okay. Depending on what you want to do. It has relatively generous mechanics, provided you can cast any of your characters' abilities in the mold of superpowers. It doesn't handle mixed power levels well (think Batman does not play well with Superman), and any setting material you'd have to build on your own; the magic system is a tag rather than anything fleshed out, so you're either looking at a lot of work to break the system to make it look like your setting of choice, or give up and mindcaulk it; the setting for a crossover is pure mindcaulk. You can do a Cyberpunk Werewolf crossover with M&M, but you're going to either be putting in a lot of work beforehand or be playing a lot of the fiddly details by the seat of your pants.

[JigokuBosatsu]

RIFTS doesn't do crossovers, it does kitchen sink.

I guess technically it's both?

Anyway, thanks for the thorough breakdowns, that's what I was hoping to see!

[Ancient History]

Conversions are a bit of a different beast...mostly because they're fairly superficial. It's very difficult to translate what 18 STR means in your average d20 D&D game into, let us say, World of Darkness, much less how the various special mechanics translate across, if at all. A World of Darkness Mage is much more powerful than a Shadowrun mage is just much more powerful than their Earthdawn equivalent, and even a really complicated conversion to try and hamfistedly make Mage or SR characters fit into ED is largely a doomed effort...and even if you succeeded, if you did it well the ED mage is going to be stomped.

To make this kind of thing work, you basically need a level playing field.

GURPS probably comes...closest. Because when GURPS translates properties into GURPS terms, there's a 50/50 chance it'll retain some aspect of what made it unique, just in GURPS mechanics, or just use the GURPS mechanics and let everything else be fluff.

The benefit is, a GURPS vampire can cast blood magic spells that a GURPS huckster (from GURPS Deadlands) can recognize and interact with. They're going to be using their individual variants on the same system, but they retain something of the flavor of the original. There'll be a few rough edges, but only because there are so many GURPS books and GURPS spells that you'll never quite cover every possible permutation. Hunt diligently, and the system can be broken.

The downside is, everything is a variant on the GURPS skill-based spell system (or, less likely, one of the other GURPS magic systems). That's...non-ideal. It's competent, it's largely thorough, it's generally expensive as a character option, and...well, it's lego blocks. You can build things with it, but sometimes that boils down to pretending the orange brick is actually a fireball. A lot of the flavor of the original mechanics is lost, most of the metaphysics inherent to the setting(s) are going out the window. It's not that GURPS doesn't have an option for astral planes, but it doesn't have a specific option that is exactly like Shadowrun's astral plane, so they're not going to quite work like players might think.

[DrPraetor]

It's a semantic argument about whether it "counts" or not, but to the extent that Rifts is playable at all, you can do a cross-over with some other Palladium product and you'll at least have rules you can use. So if you want to do Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Battletech, that would... do the thing that Rifts does?

Rifts doesn't support cross-overs very well generically, both because the rules are an abortion and content generation is hard. That is, if you wanted to have Spock and Miles Naismith go on space adventures together, you'd have to write up a whole bunch of rules for Vulcans and it still wouldn't be a good game because Rifts was a hopelessly retro disaster before it came out, which was before I'd ever kissed a girl. The good things about rifts are the cool setting-specific stuff, which isn't a good start if you're looking for cross-over potential.

In other contexts, Frank has suggested Feng Shui?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus:_The_Infinite_City is basically the same game, and has a few more rules flushed out (although IIRC, Feng Shui also fixed some problems with the system.)

[OgreBattle]

Yeah you could say RIFTS does crossovers well in that if you're playing RIFTS you're already in the mindset for willing everything into form and not really actually using rules as written.

In general though "Build your own superhero" type games tend to do crossovers well in the sense that superhero settings already have wildly disparate characters doing different things.

[Voss]

RIFTS doesn't do crossovers, it does kitchen sink.

I guess technically it's both?

Haha. The Rifts Joke Book.

The conversion book is something of a revelation if you read it closely. Yes, most of the palladium games theoretically use the same system, but at times you'll find you get fairly different numbers from what are theoretically the same WPs, attack progressions and other shit, and even wildly different numbers of attacks per round.

To some extent this doesn't matter too much since the resolution mechanic is made of ass (anything 6+ hits, but then parry/dodge). But fundamentally more than half stuff from other games wanders into Rifts as SDC critters and, well, dies. And the shit that doesn't can be at wildly different ends of the power spectrum.

But some of Kevin's insane rants (mostly about how stupid players are) in that book give you some insight into how things are supposed to work (and the tone is because obviously, 'How does no one get it?' laments the poor misunderstood author), particularly a section where he rants about a party failing to understand mega-damage, with a baby dragon accidentally splattering people and a cheap-ass laser pistol bringing down the bar (as in the entire building) and shit.

It really reinforces the 'joke misconception' where no one steps out of their MDC armor ever, and supernatural creatures can't cut their damn fingernails without an artifact or vibrosword. Kevin's solution, of course, is to force the players to get out their armor sometimes, at threats of obliteration if they don't. (At which point the proper response is never play anything that isn't inherently MDC).

[Ancient History]

In other contexts, Frank has suggested Feng Shui?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus:_The_Infinite_City is basically the same game, and has a few more rules flushed out (although IIRC, Feng Shui also fixed some problems with the system.)

Nexus is fun - did an OSSR of it a while back - but it's just your fairly generic interdimensional setting, not so much a union of settings. "You fall through a portal and land in a strange world"/"Pull an Alice in Wonderland" is pretty easy for most folks to accomplish, the hard part is figuring out how weapons and magic work (or don't work, as the case may be).

[phlapjackage]

I know you said "well", but how about Torg?

[JigokuBosatsu]

DrPraetor, I thought you said "Spock and Mike Nesmith go on space adventures together" and I got really excited.

[Dogbert]

Regardless of system, crossovers are always bad news unless the two produicts are same genre and similar power level. Even assuming a platonic ideal of a game system:

Mix different power levels and you'll end up with Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandit. News flash, lots of players don't like getting the short end of the stick.

Mix different genres and you end up with a Last Action Hero comedy where one side plays the idiot half of the movie because "ha-ha, you idiot! That's not how things work here!" News flash, lots of players find "never knowing which way is up" bullshit frustrating.

You can crossover Batman and The Green Hornet. You CAN'T mix Voltron and The Green Hornet. Period.

Alternatively, you can take the "Tsubasa Reservoir" route in which travelling to a different universe gives you all kind of adhoc powers that turn you into a badass a-la John Carter, but then you end up with something so different from the original concept that you might as well have rolled a new character.

[PhoneLobster]

Regardless of system, crossovers are always bad news unless the two products are same genre and similar power level. Even assuming a platonic ideal of a game system

I'm going to point out that you are, technically, wrong.

If we assume some platonic ideal, or even just rules compatibility, but with asymmetric "power levels" between the "crossed over" settings...

...it's actually just one single setting with factions of asymmetric power levels.

Now you can be a total dumb ass and then just expect players to take and play characters of wildly asymmetric power levels from asymmetric factions and play them along side each other for no reason and then OBVIOUSLY have a serious problem.

Or you COULD simply account for the factional asymmetry appropriately and limit player options to broadly similar power levels and account for higher level power asymmetry as part of your character advancement progression or your encounter balance system.

Effectively, no, there ISN'T any reason Voltrons cannot invade Green Hornet land in compatible rules sets. It's just that when they do either your characters all start as Green Hornets and progress to Captured Rebel Voltron Pilots, OR your characters are all Green Hornets fighting appropriately small numbers of Voltrons in the same way D&D parties fight Dragons.

Though frankly I am not sure Green Hornet is a great contrasting example against Voltron for many reasons. (including, seriously there is an entire 1 person on the internet who remembers and likes Green Hornet enough to mention it? Wow) Hell even Voltron might not be the best choice to try and demonstrate your asymetric power incompatibility either what with the somewhat obvious progression path from mere human to robot lion pilot (fuck the other Voltrons) which infact was even a thing in the early episodes.

Anyway. Short version. RPGs make power level asymmetry work in their settings all the fucking time it isn't an insurmountable obstacle, you just need to not be an idiot about it and expect asymmetric characters to work seamlessly side by side as equals regardless of whether they come from compatible but different products or not.

And fair enough for the point you are trying to make, all too often being an idiot about it IS the way both game designers and "that sounds cool" GMs DO try to handle it.

[Dogbert]

Now I start getting why people have PL in such "stellar" concept. Such amount of hot air to say absolutely nothing (let alone something actually relevant to my point).

[PhoneLobster]

Dogbert you dumb fuck. You said "You can crossover Batman and The Green Hornet. You CAN'T mix Voltron and The Green Hornet. Period. "

And you are wrong about that. You can mix those things in your game you just don't get to put a giant super space robot directly in the same adventuring party as a normal guy who punches stuff.

You incorrectly conflated mixing settings with wild power asymmetry within the same party of characters. That is a rather notable fucking oversight. It is an especially notable oversight if someone was planning on mixing two settings and actually making it work.

[Ancient History]

Let's talk disparities vs. incompatibilities for a moment.

An incompatibility is something that cannot work together. Setting wise, that means that concept A and concept B cannot coexist; mechanically, it means that system A and system B cannot interact.

You have to work pretty hard to find two setting concepts that cannot be reconciled - usually by bending the rules of one or the other. Like having a medieval AD&D setting where magic exists intersect with Star Trek, a high-tech futuristic setting where magic doesn't (for a given definition of magic) - those appear to be incompatible setting concepts, but you can overcome that - by having the AD&D setting on a holodeck for example, or magic explained away (if needs be) as sub-warp manipulations by latent psionic talents or something, or Star Trek tech as just really advanced magic.

Mechanical incompatibility is much more common - and it's not just that a Shadowrun fireball and an AD&D fireball are two different things, it comes down to essential mechanics of the games. Shadowrun and WoD hit boxes represent damage, but they are not directly equivalent to Earthdawn or AD&D hit points. If you want to make the games compatible, you need a certain amount of reworking of the rules so that they can meaningfully interact - like translating SR damage codes into D&D hit points - and that can get awfully involved, because Shadowrun has concepts like Essence which plain don't exist in D&D (just as D&D has no concept of miniguns or hacking).

Disparity is another kettle of fish entirely. Contemplate the Justice League.



All of the members of the Justice League have their own adventures, and those are adventures suited to their character concept. When the come together, however, it is obvious that some of them have powers, abilities, and concepts which are very different from the others - there is a great disparity in the raw power level between Batman and Superman. On their own, doing their own thing, this disparity doesn't matter so much: Green Lantern deals with space pirates, Batman punches bank robbers, all is well.

And yet, Batman's primary purpose is not to pick up any kryptonite that Superman might happen to run across; they are both supposed to contribute to an adventure...when they are together. And this is the rub with any crossover: you need a concept which presents some challenge to which all the players can rise and contribute to the final goal. There are a lot of ways to do this, some of them don't even suck - but it's the heart of any successful crossover.

Shadowrun and Earthdawn, for example, have been noted as having characters with a vast disparity in power. The greatest Archer in ED is going to be outclassed by a beginning sniper in Shadowrun. That's as it may be. That doesn't mean that archery sudden stops working, or that they can't contribute, but it does mean that the scenario has to be set up in such a way that the disparity is either mollified (the Archer adept gains a sniper rifle and figures out how to apply their magic to it) or that the characters are still contributing to the end goal - maybe the Big Bad has a quickened barrier against bullets, but forgot about arrows, that kind of nonsense.

This is tricky. This is a pain in the ass. And Mister Cavern needs to be flexible, because players tend to get creative and go off in unexpected directions - but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

[Dogbert]

This is tricky. This is a pain in the ass. And Mister Cavern needs to be flexible, because players tend to get creative and go off in unexpected directions - but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Ok, it can be done, the question would rather be... is it worth the hassle? Game-wise. in a successful crossover, no concept would be obviated/invalidated, and every concept must be valid the majority of time (because otherwise we go back to the crap of the party finding a hall full of traps and the Rogue gets to work while the rest of the table go play Smash Bros).

Sure, a lot of games "do it"... but most of those games happen to be shit, also.

The Strange would actually be it, except it's not really Crossover stuff because the three worlds never really interact with one other, it's more of a "Tsubasa Reservoir" thing.

[spongeknight]

Ok, it can be done, the question would rather be... is it worth the hassle? Game-wise. in a successful crossover, no concept would be obviated/invalidated, and every concept must be valid the majority of time (because otherwise we go back to the crap of the party finding a hall full of traps and the Rogue gets to work while the rest of the table go play Smash Bros).

Funnily enough, Smash Bros shows us one way to make a successful crossover: yell "fuck you!" to the original canon and declare everyone is at the same power level. I mean, it might piss off some purists who cry when their literal goddess waifu gets the shit kicked out of her by a fat plumber, but it works. In that sense, Mutants & Masterminds or Champions would be the best crossover games, because you can model just about anything in them and set them at approximately the same power levels.

[maglag]

Ok, it can be done, the question would rather be... is it worth the hassle? Game-wise. in a successful crossover, no concept would be obviated/invalidated, and every concept must be valid the majority of time (because otherwise we go back to the crap of the party finding a hall full of traps and the Rogue gets to work while the rest of the table go play Smash Bros).

Funnily enough, Smash Bros shows us one way to make a successful crossover: yell "fuck you!" to the original canon and declare everyone is at the same power level. I mean, it might piss off some purists who cry when their literal goddess waifu gets the shit kicked out of her by a fat plumber, but it works. In that sense, Mutants & Masterminds or Champions would be the best crossover games, because you can model just about anything in them and set them at approximately the same power levels.

Super Robot Wars has being doing that for years/decades now that you mention it.

Mazinger? Evangelion? TTGL? Super Metal Panic? VOTOMs? All able to more or less damage and tank/evade each other's attacks.

Extra points because SRW games go the extra mile of combining each show's storylines (whereas SSB characters don't even talk, although that's part of the charm I guess). And the result is glorious as each game you get to stop at least three alien invasions making a line to conquer/destroy the world, a couple crazy scientists, some shady criminal organizations, and topple a corrupt earth government or two.

[Mechalich]

Warrior's Orochi did this as well - casting characters not only from Samurai/Dynasty Warriors, but a bunch of other franchises (like Ninja Gaiden and DoA) into their mass combat scenarios and crafting a series of bizarre 'fused world' storylines to accommodate everything.

The problem with a crossover RPG is more of the out-of-combat stuff though, not the combat balancing. Setting things like damage, speed, and area of effect to be nominally balanced is simple compared to dealing with a problem like someone from one universe being able to teleport and no one else having something to match that capability, or even mundane stuff like only one character knowing how to use a phone.

[Ancient History]

In that sense, Mutants & Masterminds or Champions would be the best crossover games, because you can model just about anything in them and set them at approximately the same power levels.

...with a couple caveats. Just because two things are nominally the same level doesn't mean the characters are equivalent; you can have characters with the same level and you're still going to see a disparity in abilities, especially if the character concepts aren't balanced against each other or if one of the characters is min-maxed. We know in d20 that a 10th level Fighter is comparatively weak compared to a 10th level Wizard, but how does either stack up next to a 10th-level Mutants & Masterminds Sorcerer? We don't have a good frame of reference for that, and that's without leaving the family of d20 variants. So disparity is something I think you have to live with.

It's one of the major issues with GURPS and other point-buy universalist systems too, and the disparities tend to be grow when you move characters between settings, because setting A might not have a counter to the power/mechanic from setting B...consider the oWoD. While nominally built on the same backbone, the different games didn't actually interact mechanically all that well - Kindred just didn't have a lot of options for even dealing with shit like Rage, Gnosis, Ki, Arete, Corpus, etc., and they were the folks with more options than anyone else on the table - the games just weren't built to actually interact meaningfully.

One way to make a crossover work is to find something that works and plug it into something that works. That's what I was going for with my Shadows over Stygia game, which combined Conan d20 and Call of Cthulhu d20 - being based primarily on Conan, but incorporating feats, monsters, and the entire magic subsystem from CoC d20. Mechanically, this pretty much worked because the two magic systems from the different games were complementary, both from a mechanical and a setting perspective.

[maglag]

The problem with a crossover RPG is more of the out-of-combat stuff though, not the combat balancing. Setting things like damage, speed, and area of effect to be nominally balanced is simple compared to dealing with a problem like someone from one universe being able to teleport and no one else having something to match that capability, or even mundane stuff like only one character knowing how to use a phone.

Boss Borot is a mecha with an open cockpit and no thrusters.

Yet it still gets to be deployed in space missions in SRW because they have the space series engineers make a patch work to make Boss Borot work in space.

Teleporting mechas simply have their range converted to regular movement range and walls either only slow down non-teleporting mechas or are have unobtainium that can block teleporting tech.

Similarly Link usually isn't that good of a jumper, but in SSB he can use his spin attack like an helicopter, while Marth can too use his sword techniques to launch himself upwards and they both know how to use poke-balls and laser guns and whatnot.

Basically combat numbers isn't the only thing you can standardize. You can:
-add cheap widely available solutions to special issues.
-add extra utility to already existing defining abilities.
-Just say that every character knows how to use common X by default.