I totally misused “licensed” up there! Well spotted, totally not what I intended to focus on. I was eating the most amazing ramen right when I wrote that, so forgive me, my mind was elsewhere.

I guess I’m thinking about how I react to Middle Earth versus uh…The ‘Verse or the Star Wars universe. Some of that is for sure specific to my personal relationship to Middle Earth: I still have no idea why anyone does anything in the trilogy other than as a MacGuffin for a travelogue of the area. Literally nothing thematic or emotional or human jumps out at me, like, at all. Even when I try to read it as a WWII allegory I’m like ehhhhh.

There’s also the awesome weight of the canon that is honestly kind of intimidating. I feel the same way trying to play Edge of the Empire with a Star Wars superfan, which I did and subsequently failed at. There’s at least one hardcore LOTR fanperson in my circle, and they’re pretty stoked to play because, I think, they assume the game will adequately/successfully barf forth Tolkien no matter what I do. Which is maybe true.

#badatfandom  or whatever. I’ll happily jump on a high-concept game (like the ones you mentioned up there) way before I’ll jump on someone else’s world.