In a recent episode of Panda’s Talking Games, Senda and Phil discussed the best ways to handle known characters from established properties – your Han Solos and Scott Summers and Gandolfs, etc – at your table. The episode is fantastic (as always) and you should totally go check it out.

Meanwhile, I had the opportunity to talk about licensed TTRPG games from the other side of things when I sat down with two of the writers working on some of the biggest IPs in the TTRPG industry right now: Lydia Suen and Meric Moir have worked on properties as varied and diverse as Arkham Horror, Achtung! Cthulhu, Star Trek, The Expanse, and most recently Brotherwise Games and Dragonsteel Production’s Cosmere RPG, the game that brings together fantasy author Brandon Sanderson’s expansive universe of stories into a single game line and the game that raised over $2 million dollars within hours of its Kickstarter launch.

We talked for over an hour about wrangling such an impressive universe into a playable game, the power of fandoms, and what to do about canon at your table. The following is just some of our discussion.

Game Settings VS Licensed Property Settings

We start by talking a bit about process. Both Lydia and Meric have worked on a wide range of properties, and I wanted to know more about the similarities and differences when writing for a setting built for an RPG versus a setting that was a book or TV series before it was a game.

“Research is always the first step,” Lydia said.

“I don’t think you should work on a licensed IP if you don’t enjoy research,” she said. “Because you need to understand the setting in and out. I like to figure out what elements of the setting are based on real-world locations or cultures and what parts of the setting are very much their own creation because I want to understand all of those inspirations so I can build a better game.”

Meric added that when talking about game settings versus fiction settings, there’s a fair amount of research that goes into either, but that writing for settings that were originally created for games like D&D or writing for games that are based in history like Achtung! Cthulhu is easier because history books and game books are written in a way that’s meant to be referenced, but when writing for a game like Star Trek or a Sanderson novel, the setting information is mixed in with the narrative.

“A throwaway line in one book of the Cosmere can change something that you’ve spent months working on,” Meric said. “You have to find ways to turn those lines into something that’s digestible but also gameable.”

Meric pointed out that while writing for historical games gives you an abundance of material to draw upon, it can also be more emotionally taxing. “When I was working on the Vive La Resistance book for Achtung! Cthulhu, I had to take significant breaks in between coming up with what the Nazis were doing.”

When trying to distill a property as expansive as the Cosmere, it can be a daunting task to know where to focus your efforts. “You have to trust your instincts and lean into the parts of the setting that are interesting to you,” Lydia said. “Especially if there are parts of the setting that people haven’t seen much of yet. If you have an idea for how to bring them to the forefront, you should go for it.”

Loading the Canons

As Senda and Phil pointed out in their podcast, how closely you want to stick to canon is an important discussion to have at your table.

“It is so hard when you’re playing in worlds that have established canon and trying to make your own story that doesn’t feel like it’s exactly the canon but respects the canon,” Meric acknowledged.

“Yeah,” Lydia said. “You can’t just tell your usual D&D, Wednesday night game group, ‘Hey, can you just download these thousands of pages of novels into your brain by next week? Thanks!'”

For the Cosmere RPG, the game writers are constantly asking themselves, “What do people need to be able to play in this space?”

To that end, they created The Stormlight World Guide, which is a wide overview of the world of Roshar, the first location for the Cosmere RPG’s setting. It gives you details on lands and people that are only hinted at in the novel and gives players and GMs the opportunity to build their own stories within the canon without impeding on the ground the novels cover.

“We really wanted to make sure the Cosmere RPG was accessible to folks without needing to read the novels.”

That’s why they also have a section of the rulebook dedicated to canon and continuity that gives you ways of talking to your group about your game’s relationship to canon. That way, if you have a table full of Sanderson mega-fans who know all of the information inside and out and want to play a strictly canon game, you can. Or if you have folks who are new to the setting and don’t want to feel awkward because they don’t know the difference between sapphire wine and orange wine, then you can take a looser grip and riff on the setting in ways that allow you to play with minimal knowledge (or even make the setting completely your own thing)!

“Also,” Lydia made sure to state. “If there’s anything in the setting you don’t like or anything that makes people in your group uncomfortable, you can just leave it out completely.”

Interestingly enough, though, there is a completely 100% canon adventure coming out via the Kickstarter in the near future – Stonewalkers. Meric had the very cool opportunity to work on the adventure. The outline, originally written by Brandon Sanderson and Dan Well, was given to the team at Brotherwise with a beginning and an ending and about three pages of story beats. Then, the designers got to ask, “How do we turn this into a game?”

All of the locations and challenges in the adventure are canon to the Stormlight Archives. Lydia explained. “Even though the books are long, there’s still fun little lore nuggets that Brandon doesn’t have time to cover, so this adventure pulls some of those together in really interesting ways.”

And, of course, there’s handy advice for GMs who want to keep the story of Stonewalkers as canon as possible because, at the end of the day, players are going to be players. “We know diverging from canon is going to happen at your table. We give you the tools to either support that divergence or get your group back on track by the end.”

The Power of Fandom

Meric talked about going to the massive Brandon Sanderson convention he attended in December. “This was my first year at Dragonsteel Nexus,” he said. “I got to interact with a huge number of fans, and having hundreds of people reacting in real-time at these panels was really energizing.”

“It’s been cool while working on the Cosmere RPG,” Lydia said. “Because the fanbase has been very encouraging, and they see our team’s passion.” She went on to add, “I consider myself a fan, and I think that’s an important part of what helps me do my job well and helps me meet the needs of the primary audience—the fans.”

And, of course, it’s that fandom that closed out the successful Cosmere RPG Kickstarter campaign with over 52,000 backers collecting over $14 million, making it the most successful tabletop Kickstarter to date.

When those fans bring that all energy to the table — some pretty epic stories are bound to happen.

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Lydia Suen is a thematic game designer with a background in developmental editing. She is best known for her work on the Cosmere RPG, Arkham Horror RPG, and Adventures in Rokugan. Lydia specializes in working with established IPs but also enjoys building settings and systems from scratch. Bold introspection, horror, and unfettered whimsy are hallmarks of her work.

Meric Moir is a digital marketing manager at an international engineering company, a MacEwan University graduate from the sadly defunct Professional Writing (PROW) program, and a constant storyteller and worldbuilder. He’s written TTRPG content for The Expanse RPG, Star Trek Adventures, Achtung! Cthulhu, and the Cosmere RPG, and he runs an actual play channel called Sky Hammer Press. Find him on BlueSky @skyhammerpress.bsky.social