Years back our group found Fellowship, the best PbtA game we've played before or since. We played it a bunch and had a lot of fun with how versatile of a framework it provides. We used it for Star Wars, Transformers, Exalted and heck, even Warhammer 40k. Which is why it was a surpsise for us to hear some people bounce from it because it was "just generic fantasy" and not looking past the genre box they put the game in to see what it is trying to do underneath the surface.
But since we have a good deal of experience reflavouring RPGs to suit what we need, let's talk about the issue more broadly! Let's talk about how you can look past the game's exterior and possibly have more fun tailoring the game to your needs!
When an Elf is not an Elf - Fellowship's Playbooks
The main way Fellowship seems to have lead people astray is with some of its names. The game itself brings to mind the Fellowship of the Ring book, and if you look at its Playbooks you see such fantasy staples as Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Orc, etc. You glance at the surface and think to yourself "yup, this sure is a generic fantasy game drawing from everyone's first fantasy book inspiration" and if you're not in the mood for playing fantasy you move on. But the looks can be deceiving!
So for example, let's look at the Elf Playbook. Here is most of what it can do:
The Elven Core Moves is the baseline for the Playbook - the Elf can use magic to hide, see well, sense magic and send messages. It also can move without leaving a trail. The Elven Custom Moves further enhance these abilities and also gives them an option to be a performer.
On the surface it's pretty Tolkien-esque elf stuff. Wield a bow, climb some trees, attack unseen, etc. But we need to look past what the flavour and theming of the mechanics is and look at what you can actually do with this mechanical set!
Because you see, with the same set of mechanics you are not only describing Legolas, but also Solid Snake, the Predator and the hecking Batman. Any character that focuses on stealth and ranged attacks can easily slot into this Playbook. If you need to add some other character-specific doodad like Batman's wealth or gadgets you can do so with the Half-Elf Custom.
The same treatment can be applied to all the other Playbooks. Dwarves are characters that are tough and into clearing a path forward (like, say, a footbal quarterback), Halflings are sneaky tricksters that like fighting big things (like Antman), Orcs are people that fight with whatever they can kitbash together (like a LEGO Master Builder).
Heck, grab the right expansion and Playbooks for Fellowship and you can just straight up play Star Trek with it...
But this idea of reflavouring mechanics and character concepts doesn't just apply to games like Fellowship. We've done it elsewhere too!
Mechanics vs flavour - Blackstar and cybernetics in SWN
A while back we played a game of Stars Without Number called Blackstar. Midway through the game we wanted to make an introduce new combat character. The character was going to be a cool cybered-up mercenary, but then when we looked at the cybernetic loadouts available in the game we were rather underwhelmed. They were prohibitively expensive for a starting level character and not as cost efficient as just getting regular gear to do similar combat stuff (these things got addressed a bit in Cities Without Number years later).
But we found a clever workaround. All we wanted was for the character to be tough and be able to punch things really well, and what covered all of our needs were the Foci the characters could take - Ironhide and Unarmed Combatant. Thematically those are there to represent some kind of space shaolin monks or tough aliens, but there isn't really anything stopping you from saying those represent your character's cyberware. You get the mechanics you need and keep the flavour you wanted without having to deal with the cumbersome cybernetics system or getting any kind of mechanical advantage over a regular character.
Conclusions
While you don't want to carelessly mess with game's mechanics while trying to make it fit the story you want to play, reflavouring existing mechanics to suit your needs works quite well with many games. When you're trying to customize a game like that, don't look at its aesthetical trappings, but instead at what the game wants to be mechanically.
And as for Fellowship, from what I've been hearing its third edition is currently in the works that might address some of the leading names for the Playbooks. Currently its Elf is the Star, Halfing is the Rascal, Dwarf is the Mountain, Orc is War Torn and so on.
So fingers crossed the game gets the recognition and accolades it deserves!
