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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8936215" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Come on, you make claims that there are games with characteristic X, Y, or Z, and then when someone asks for a citation, it's all some mysterious 'talking in abstract'. I think it might be talking about nothing to be rather blunt about it.</p><p></p><p>No, it wasn't actually. [USER=4534]@MGibster[/USER] was definitely refuting you by pointing out that your 'focus problem' is nothing more than "I don't want to play what this particular game offers" which actually makes it YOUR problem for deciding to play that game, even though it is not what you want (need in the farmer analogy).</p><p></p><p>I hate to disappoint you... Early RPGs did a lot of things, but MANY of them aimed to be fairly generic, either in what they could handle within their settings -ala D&D- (most did this) or to an even greater degree as being specifically designed as universal systems. There is a LONG LONG list of such universal systems, they're still being produced regularly today! (Cypher system would be a modern example). You would be more accurate to say that there are quite a few specialized games today. However, they are MOSTLY based on a small number of general purpose 'engines', either ones dating all the way back to first half of the '80s, or things like FATE, Cortex+, PbtA, or FitD. I don't think it is fair to complain about the lack of generality of games like this, as they are absolutely not intended to be, and do not need to be, general. If you want a generalized PbtA game for instance, that won't even work! However you can borrow playbooks from any PbtA and use them in other PbtAs (maybe some won't work well, depending on how far distant the agenda/genre are from each other). Likewise FitD is a pretty general 'engine' and you can bring in subsystems, crew sheets, and character types (classes) from any FitD into others, or simply add new ones as-needed to do something new. BitD itself has a number of attached thematic little subsystems too, those are quite easy to add, and generally are fairly setting/genre specific anyway. </p><p></p><p>I will be honest, I'm not at all convinced by a lot of the arguments as to what systems are 'more general' than others. Yes, some may have been developed with a very specific setting in mind, but usually employ fairly general RPG design principles. There are really only a few exceptions, like maybe Monster Hearts is pretty niche, or My Life With Master, though I don't know a ton about either game.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8936215, member: 82106"] Come on, you make claims that there are games with characteristic X, Y, or Z, and then when someone asks for a citation, it's all some mysterious 'talking in abstract'. I think it might be talking about nothing to be rather blunt about it. No, it wasn't actually. [USER=4534]@MGibster[/USER] was definitely refuting you by pointing out that your 'focus problem' is nothing more than "I don't want to play what this particular game offers" which actually makes it YOUR problem for deciding to play that game, even though it is not what you want (need in the farmer analogy). I hate to disappoint you... Early RPGs did a lot of things, but MANY of them aimed to be fairly generic, either in what they could handle within their settings -ala D&D- (most did this) or to an even greater degree as being specifically designed as universal systems. There is a LONG LONG list of such universal systems, they're still being produced regularly today! (Cypher system would be a modern example). You would be more accurate to say that there are quite a few specialized games today. However, they are MOSTLY based on a small number of general purpose 'engines', either ones dating all the way back to first half of the '80s, or things like FATE, Cortex+, PbtA, or FitD. I don't think it is fair to complain about the lack of generality of games like this, as they are absolutely not intended to be, and do not need to be, general. If you want a generalized PbtA game for instance, that won't even work! However you can borrow playbooks from any PbtA and use them in other PbtAs (maybe some won't work well, depending on how far distant the agenda/genre are from each other). Likewise FitD is a pretty general 'engine' and you can bring in subsystems, crew sheets, and character types (classes) from any FitD into others, or simply add new ones as-needed to do something new. BitD itself has a number of attached thematic little subsystems too, those are quite easy to add, and generally are fairly setting/genre specific anyway. I will be honest, I'm not at all convinced by a lot of the arguments as to what systems are 'more general' than others. Yes, some may have been developed with a very specific setting in mind, but usually employ fairly general RPG design principles. There are really only a few exceptions, like maybe Monster Hearts is pretty niche, or My Life With Master, though I don't know a ton about either game. [/QUOTE]
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