# Did Somebody Say Krull As an RPG? tags: #thoughts ![[Krull (poster).jpg]] Once again, a thread inspired by another game designer on Twitter, one which you may recognize from some of my previous tinkering as Jonathan Hicks, creator of **[[Those Dark Places]]** and **[[Those Dark Places|Pressure]]**. You know, it's almost impossible for me to resist people talking about **[Krull](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085811/)**. Is it a particularly odd movie of it's era? Undoubtedly. Is it unmoored in terms of plot and place, never quite sure exactly what it is? Yes. Is it electric awesome in a bottle? Also true.  ---  As usual, when I run into this kind of idea, the first thing I start doing is trying to work out if I have a game that exists already, which would allow me to put together the parts in order to do what's on the plate. In this case, what are the elements that would be interesting? - We have the capability of running man-to-man level skirmish combat. - Traditional fantasy tropes, but clearly filtered through science fiction as a setting. - Multiple species. - Some sort of magical/psionic power, which has a pretty significant scale of immediate effects. - Nothing really in the way of gods. - Multi-generational plot lines. - Individual relationships are not necessarily the core of the plot, but rather things that support the physical and intellectual capabilities of the protagonists. While my initial twitch would be to see if I could put this together in **[[Ironsworn - Starforged|Starforged]]**, which I'm pretty sure that I could, though I'd have to come up with some mechanism for passing on legacy from one generation to another. It may be that this requires something a little more complex. Though complex may not be the right word. I suppose it hinges on whether we want open (in the sense of the grand we). The elements of the story to come to be discovered as things that we have created and have waiting in the classical and traditional RPG architecture of GM/player dichotomy, or whether it might be better to have the players generate the elements as they go, given the familiarity with the world as designed, as described by only what we know, which is the movie. I generally prefer to run things GMlessly, given the choice. Thus, the original urge towards **Starforged** as a solution. And I think that could work if you got everyone on the same page pretty well. Obviously, **[[Microscope]]** would work really well. For this kind of game, it would let the players focus on the broad strokes of whatever it was we wanted the world to evolve into. And then zoom in as interest caught them. If you wanted to play a game about how those rulerships came to be and perhaps even crumbled, that would be the way. Likewise, **[[Kingdom]]** would be a great choice for exploring at a finer scale the kinds of crises that came up on a regular basis once things started to gel. It's not a game about adventuring or questing or even particularly about warfare, though you can really work it hard to do so. But it is about a group of people who are effectively in charge of a society dealing with lots of stuff. And that could be interesting. So, were it up to me, the first questions I would have to start to really nail down before I could do anything would be to ask: 1. What kind of scale are we talking about? Is it following the actions and choices of individuals as they work individually? Is it following the group as a whole as they work their way up through the cultural and political situation? Is it following the kingdoms and empires that they create? 2. What kind of simulation/mechanization do we want as the core hook? Is it GMless player-driven or is it situation/GM-driven? 3. Is there an end game/end of the game, which is something that can be accomplished and the story bought to a close or does the story have no effective end and is just an ongoing history? I'm still vaguely tempted to see what I could put together with **Starforged** or a close variant. If it focused more on interpersonal connection, I'd be tempted to maybe try a hack of **[[Fantasy World]]** and see what shook out. In any case, I'd start with what doesn't work with the tools I have and then work backwards to figuring out what additional bits I'd have to craft and graft. But that's me.