Recycled in Space/Tabletop Games

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The Eberron campaign setting is Dungeons & Dragons FEATURING MAGITEK!
  • Spelljammer is literally Dungeons & Dragons IN SPACE! It was largely unpopular, but it has a significant cult following.
  • d20 Future is D20 Modern (which is Dungeons & Dragons IN THE MODERN WORLD!) IN THE FUTURE!... oh, all right: IN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!
  • d20 Past and d20 Apocalypse are Dungeons & Dragons IN THE LATE 1800s and After the End respectively. Both also have Urban Arcana style settings.
  • Gamma World was already D&D After the End!
  • Warhammer 40,000 began as Warhammer Fantasy Battle IN SPACE! but is now pretty much its own entity; it still, however, has goblins in space, orcs in space, elves in space, ogres in space, the Church Militant in space, vikings in space, communists in space and Chaos Gods in space. Previous versions also had dwarfs in space.
  • White Wolf has a bizarre relationship with this trope, Retcon, and Spiritual Successor.
    • Mage: The Ascension was originally conceived as the medieval RPG, Ars Magica, IN THE MODERN DAY! -- but then begat not only Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade (MtA IN THE RENAISSANCE!), but, once White Wolf sold the rights to Ars Magica itself, Dark Ages: Mage.
    • Exalted, in turn, was supposed to be the original Old World of Darkness IN PREHISTORY! -- but now there's Scion, self-described as Exalted: IN THE MODERN WORLD WITH ANCIENT MYTHS ON TOP! (Though Scion doesn't necessarily match that description.)
    • Less problematical are the other historical games set in the Old World of Darkness: Vampire: THE DARK AGES!, Vampire: THE VICTORIAN AGE!, Werewolf: THE WILD WEST!, et al.
    • There are also the settings in different cultures. Best known is the Year of the Lotus event which gave Asian treatments of every gameline, the flagship title being Kindred of the East.
    • And then there's Infinite Macabre, which is the New World of Darkness IN SPACE.
  • Cthulhu Tech is Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game) IN THE FUTURE! Although not IN SPACE! as the Migou tend to blow up anything the NEG tries to keep up.
    • Steve Jackson Games has already done GURPS: Cthulhupunk, a sourcebook that puts Cthulhu IN CYBERPUNK!
  • Star Munchkin: "Kill the monsters. Grab the treasure. Stab your buddy IN SPACE!" [1] [dead link]
    • It should go without saying that the other Munchkins are merely Munckin WITH PIRATES, WITH KUNG FU, IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS, WITH ZOMBIES, and so forth.
  • The old Renegade Legions games is about The Roman Empire... IN SPAAAAAAAAACE!!
  • Spacemaster is Role Master... In space!
  • Traveller Intersteller Wars is the Greco-Persian wars in space, all the way from Marathon through Alexander's conquest.
  • Monopoly. Dear LORD, Monopoly. There's Monopoly WITH SPONGEBOB! Monopoly WITH DISNEY!! Monopoly WITH LORD OF THE RINGS!! Just check Google Images. Or any store that sells classic games.
    • Also Pokemonopoly, although for whatever reason they didn't portmanteau it and marketed it as Pokemon Monopoly.
  • Parodied with Greg Stolze's free rpg In Spaaaaaaace!, which is billed as a generic space opera...IN SPAAAAAACE! Yes, generic space operas are already in spaaaaaaace. That is, of course, the joke.
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