Sword of Spirit
Legend
It occurred to me that it would be useful to have a list of popular or notable RPGs listed on a variety of scales regarding different aspects of a game for comparison's sake. I'd love to hear people's opinions on where the games* they are familiar with fit on each of these aspects.
RPG SYSTEM ASPECTS
Style
Most RPGs gravitate towards supporting a particular gaming style, though most are also flexible enough to bend or vary. I'd like to try to hit the style(s) that any particular game seems most suited to.
Narrativist: Focus is on telling a story. What makes sense to a story is more important than how likely something might be to happen. Players usually have a degree of control over elements beyond their own character, such as spending resources to alter the world around them beyond what their character's in-game abilities would allow. Balance between character power in a combat sense is downplayed in importance.
Simulationist: Focus is on exploring a simulated world. The world tends to behave in a way that makes internal sense, and that indicates a living setting that exists outside and beyond the character's lives or storyline. Random encounters and events sometimes help provide this sort of verisimilitude. Players affect the world primarily (often exclusively) through the choices and abilities of their characters.
Gamist: Focus is on challenge and balance. Whether the world is more of a story backdrop or a living world, the emphasis is on characters who are balanced against each other and against obstacles pitting their game stats against those obstacles in an attempt to overcome challenges and earn rewards.
Complexity
In this case, I'm speaking of how many rules and variations need to be mastered to get the most out of the game, and how frequently and extensively they are applied.
Rules-Lite: Focus is on simplicity and speed of play. Generally you have one (or at most two) resolutions systems, and everything you do uses that system, with very few specific details. Lists of a variety of actions, equipment, etc, are almost never present. Flexibility is usually so prominent that the GM has broad leeway in how to interpret results and implement rules.
Rules-Moderate: Rather than having a focus, rule-moderate games generally become so simply because they aren't focused on simplicity or comprehensiveness. Some are intentionally designed to have the right number of rules and systems for the desired goals, and other simply evolve into a moderately complex system naturally as they are designed. You tend to have some tables and lists, a few to several subsystems, and a good degree of flexibility in how to apply them.
Rules-Heavy: Focus is on comprehensiveness. There are generally numerous systems in order to accommodate everything possible in the world. Long lists of equipment, combat actions numbering in the dozens, scales with numerous fine distinctions for levels of thing like intoxication, mutation, or sensory capability are common. Anything that can be better represented by its own subsystem is generally given one, and tables are liberally placed all over the books. Flexibility in applying rules in generally considered relatively unneeded, and ambiguity in rules is specifically disfavored, with GM judgement calls seen as something to be avoided.
Realism
Some games attempt to replicate our universe as closely as possible, while the other extreme is more like a high action anime.
Gritty: Focus is on making the world feel real. Bullets kill. Starvation happens. Big bad monsters are to be feared and fled, accompanied by involuntary bowel movements.
Adventurous: Emphasis is on being the best of the best. You don't have to worry about death by tripping over a manhole, but you still probably don't want to jump off a 3 story building. The game is designed to encourage taking risks, without trivializing dangers.
Fantastic: Emphasis is on a larger than life heroic experience. Characters aren't concerned with the mundane inconveniences of things such as realistic injuries from falling or being thrown into walls by super villains or giant robots. The "Rule of Cool" is the first law of physics, and the book probably says so. Real-world concerns are pretty much ignored unless they are an important plot element.
Character Mechanics
Some games make characters based on a long list of skills, other let you make three choices and start playing.
Trait-Based: Characters are a combination of ala carte traits. These traits may be skills, attributes, descriptive words, or any combination thereof. If these traits can be improved, they are often improved individually, rather than in concert. These traits are used in the major task resolution system(s) of the game, meaning that individual characters can often specialize however they want, having widely different skill-sets.
Hybrid: Characters combine high-level defining categories, with significant trait customization not tied to class. Classes and traits may have joint advancement once chosen (build your own class), or they may remain separate, with advancement in class not connected to advancement in traits, and vice versa.
Class-Based: Characters are defined by their aptitude in a high-level category, or character "class." Character advancement occurs through gaining different levels or degrees in this class. This class determines the most important features of the character, and sets major limitations on them in other areas.
I'm sure there can be a lot of disagreement, but I'd love to see some opinions on which systems seem to best support which categories.
* NOTE: D&D is a sprawling monster of a game, differing more between editions than many other games differ from completely separate games. I'd rather not bring D&D discussion into this, if possible, since it will likely degenerate into debate over which editions are designed to support which styles, etc.
RPG SYSTEM ASPECTS
Style
Most RPGs gravitate towards supporting a particular gaming style, though most are also flexible enough to bend or vary. I'd like to try to hit the style(s) that any particular game seems most suited to.
Narrativist: Focus is on telling a story. What makes sense to a story is more important than how likely something might be to happen. Players usually have a degree of control over elements beyond their own character, such as spending resources to alter the world around them beyond what their character's in-game abilities would allow. Balance between character power in a combat sense is downplayed in importance.
Simulationist: Focus is on exploring a simulated world. The world tends to behave in a way that makes internal sense, and that indicates a living setting that exists outside and beyond the character's lives or storyline. Random encounters and events sometimes help provide this sort of verisimilitude. Players affect the world primarily (often exclusively) through the choices and abilities of their characters.
Gamist: Focus is on challenge and balance. Whether the world is more of a story backdrop or a living world, the emphasis is on characters who are balanced against each other and against obstacles pitting their game stats against those obstacles in an attempt to overcome challenges and earn rewards.
Complexity
In this case, I'm speaking of how many rules and variations need to be mastered to get the most out of the game, and how frequently and extensively they are applied.
Rules-Lite: Focus is on simplicity and speed of play. Generally you have one (or at most two) resolutions systems, and everything you do uses that system, with very few specific details. Lists of a variety of actions, equipment, etc, are almost never present. Flexibility is usually so prominent that the GM has broad leeway in how to interpret results and implement rules.
Rules-Moderate: Rather than having a focus, rule-moderate games generally become so simply because they aren't focused on simplicity or comprehensiveness. Some are intentionally designed to have the right number of rules and systems for the desired goals, and other simply evolve into a moderately complex system naturally as they are designed. You tend to have some tables and lists, a few to several subsystems, and a good degree of flexibility in how to apply them.
Rules-Heavy: Focus is on comprehensiveness. There are generally numerous systems in order to accommodate everything possible in the world. Long lists of equipment, combat actions numbering in the dozens, scales with numerous fine distinctions for levels of thing like intoxication, mutation, or sensory capability are common. Anything that can be better represented by its own subsystem is generally given one, and tables are liberally placed all over the books. Flexibility in applying rules in generally considered relatively unneeded, and ambiguity in rules is specifically disfavored, with GM judgement calls seen as something to be avoided.
Realism
Some games attempt to replicate our universe as closely as possible, while the other extreme is more like a high action anime.
Gritty: Focus is on making the world feel real. Bullets kill. Starvation happens. Big bad monsters are to be feared and fled, accompanied by involuntary bowel movements.
Adventurous: Emphasis is on being the best of the best. You don't have to worry about death by tripping over a manhole, but you still probably don't want to jump off a 3 story building. The game is designed to encourage taking risks, without trivializing dangers.
Fantastic: Emphasis is on a larger than life heroic experience. Characters aren't concerned with the mundane inconveniences of things such as realistic injuries from falling or being thrown into walls by super villains or giant robots. The "Rule of Cool" is the first law of physics, and the book probably says so. Real-world concerns are pretty much ignored unless they are an important plot element.
Character Mechanics
Some games make characters based on a long list of skills, other let you make three choices and start playing.
Trait-Based: Characters are a combination of ala carte traits. These traits may be skills, attributes, descriptive words, or any combination thereof. If these traits can be improved, they are often improved individually, rather than in concert. These traits are used in the major task resolution system(s) of the game, meaning that individual characters can often specialize however they want, having widely different skill-sets.
Hybrid: Characters combine high-level defining categories, with significant trait customization not tied to class. Classes and traits may have joint advancement once chosen (build your own class), or they may remain separate, with advancement in class not connected to advancement in traits, and vice versa.
Class-Based: Characters are defined by their aptitude in a high-level category, or character "class." Character advancement occurs through gaining different levels or degrees in this class. This class determines the most important features of the character, and sets major limitations on them in other areas.
I'm sure there can be a lot of disagreement, but I'd love to see some opinions on which systems seem to best support which categories.
* NOTE: D&D is a sprawling monster of a game, differing more between editions than many other games differ from completely separate games. I'd rather not bring D&D discussion into this, if possible, since it will likely degenerate into debate over which editions are designed to support which styles, etc.
