From Star Wars, Star Trek and Firefly to Conan, Lord of the Rings and (shudder) Diablo, there are tons of RPGs out there based on licensed properties.

My experience running licensed games is close to zero, although I’ve played in my share of them. From a player’s standpoint, the approaches I’ve seen most often are playing in the setting with minimal interaction with canon storylines, and having a moderate amount of interaction with canon (major NPCs are present, for example) — but there are plenty of other ways to approach licensed games.

If you have run or are running a campaign based on a licensed property, what are some of the unique challenges you’ve had to face? How about common pitfalls?

(If you have tons of experience in this area, I’d love to see a guest post or two on this topic. Don’t let that stop you from commenting, but please drop me a line if that appeals to you!)