Jon Peterson: Does System Matter?

D&D historian Jon Peterson asks the question on his blog as he does a deep dive into how early tabletop RPG enthusiasts wrestled with the same thing.

Based around the concept that 'D&D can do anything, so why learn a new system?', the conversation examines whether the system itself affects the playstyle of those playing it. Some systems are custom-designed to create a certain atmosphere (see Dread's suspenseful Jenga-tower narrative game), and Call of Cthulhu certainly discourages the D&D style of play, despite a d20 version in early 2000s.

Does System Matter?

Dungeons & Dragons started out as a game with such an adaptable and open-ended set of rules that early adopters questioned whether any fur...

playingattheworld.blogspot.com

 

[fearsomepirate]

While I agree that 5E only really has about 20 pages of rules that a player needs to learn in order to play, I disagree that the natural language used to present those rules makes the game more accessible. It's the format and layout of the rules, rather than their scope or complexity, that makes D&D more difficult to learn than it needs to be. Boardgame rules use standard instructional design elements like bulleted lists, numbered lists, white space, sidebars, clear and concise language, etc. to present rules in a much more user-friendly manner than the wall-of-text model employed by WotC and most other RPG publishers.

If you want to see RPG rulebooks designed by people who understand instructional design, take a look at Old School Essentials or Five Torches Deep. If or when WotC comes out with a 6E, they need someone who understands design and user experience put in charge of formatting the books.

I've been running 5e since it came out, and I still can't find things in the rulebook when I need to.

 

[Ovinomancer]

How does D&D condition people to have their own book? I play with three tables of 4-6 and all three have two PHB’s between them.

You play with 14 to 16 people with 2 PHBs total, or with 6? No use of any other rules sources? That's highly unique.

D&D conditions players having rulebooks because is a rules medium-heavy game that strongly rewards system mastery. I'd guess your groups are either very casual or have extensive D&D experience (or both) if they get by this lightly. Or, you're leaving out other rule resources like DDB.

 

[Manbearcat]

Because we generally play games that are made by the people who are telling stories that we like. I find Dungeon World utterly unimpressive in that regard. As would my group.

Pathfinder 1e, D&D, WFRP have all released great stories. I don’t think it’s coincidence that we’ve played adventures written by each of them in each of the other systems (with the exception of PF adventures in WFRP rules - just because it’s newer). The system wasn’t as important as the stories we were telling.

Can you elaborate what “we play games that are telling stories that we like” means. I’m particularly interested in what that says or doesn’t say about “system matters.” Also, you used the word “tell” rather than “produces” or “stories emerge.” Is there a distinction there that you’re meaning or are the interchangeable?

For instance, if I were to say that (and I wouldn’t phrase it like that), I would probably say something like:

“I’m drawn to games in which the premise is compelling and the design drives rewarding, visceral play where stories emerge around that compelling premise.”

Something like that.

But, given what you’ve written above (the implication that system doesn’t matter much yet you don’t like “Dungeon World’s stories”), it seems to me you mean something different (whether slightly or fundamentally I can’t tell)?

 

[TheSword]

You play with 14 to 16 people with 2 PHBs total, or with 6? No use of any other rules sources? That's highly unique.

D&D conditions players having rulebooks because is a rules medium-heavy game that strongly rewards system mastery. I'd guess your groups are either very casual or have extensive D&D experience (or both) if they get by this lightly. Or, you're leaving out other rule resources like DDB.

Each table has 2 PHBs. One of which is mine. Unless you’re a spell caster and not using d&d beyond why on earth would you need a PHB for anything other than character creation or leveling up?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Each table has 2 PHBs. One of which is mine. Unless you’re a spell caster and not using d&d beyond why on earth would you need a PHB for anything other than character creation or leveling up?

"And not using d&d beyond," is a huge hole in your point, though -- it's still needed access to the rules of the game.

 

[billd91]

Each table has 2 PHBs. One of which is mine. Unless you’re a spell caster and not using d&d beyond why on earth would you need a PHB for anything other than character creation or leveling up?

Using D&D Beyond may be away around players actually owning the books personally, but it’s not a particularly good argument that D&D doesn‘t encourage owning the rule books.

 

[MGibster]

Most of the time, IME, this isn't necessary. I think that this again D&D conditioning people that players should/would have a book of their own. Over the past few years, I have run Fate (incl. Jadepunk), Numenera, the Cypher System, AGE (Titansgrave, Blue Rose), D&D 5e, Index Card RPG, and Dungeon World. None of which required that my players buy the book. I even ran and played Pathfinder, and in that case, most of us used d20pfsrd.org or the other online resources. Online resources, in general, are fairly prevalent, particularly among fan communities.

This is one of those your miles may vary situations. I find it a lot easier to just purchase the main book so I have easy access to the rules and at least the basic setting information I need to make my participation a satisfactory experience. For me and most of my players, the $60 price tag for a new game isn't much of a barrier. I'm more concerned about having another book sitting on my shelf sitting unloved and unused than I am about money. For me, there's definitely been a correlation between campaigns I didn't particular care for and books I didn't purchase. I have two in the last 15 years I'm thinking of in particular and I can't recall their name and it's driving me nuts!

Here, I find that a basic cheat sheet for the rules is all that's typically needed for assisting players get started. I usually print out one sheet per two players. In fact, I wish that more TTRPGs would include a cheat sheet overview of the basic rules, as that sort of aid tremendously helps players (or even the GM) jump into the game quicker.

In my particular group, we've been using Savage Worlds off an on for more than five years now. I still have a player who asks me if he needs to roll a Wild Die when making a Vigor check. Cheat sheets are helpful and we've certainly used them in the past, when I run and when I'm a player, but I still run into this problem with my group.

Again, here is where I go with a one-page write-up of the setting, if such is necessary at all, as this likely would have come up in either Session 0 or in pitching the game to the group. A lot of settings tend to be somewhat light on their toes when it comes to the amount of details necessary to immerse oneself into to play.

The plethora of online resources has really been a godsend when it comes to introducing new players to a setting. When I ran Vampire 5th edition, only one player was familiar with the setting and I was able to recommend several lore videos on Youtube for them to get an idea of what it was all about. Youtube and fan Wikis are very, very useful resources for players and dungeon masters and they're both cheap. But, again, with my group, some of them just aren't going to read any of the material no matter how accessible I make it. My one page write ups for campaign settings usually consist of two paragraphs rather than a whole page.

 

[Morrus]

Using D&D Beyond may be away around players actually owning the books personally, but it’s not a particularly good argument that D&D doesn‘t encourage owning the rule books.

Do you still have to buy them on DDB? I haven't used the platform myself, so I'm not familiar. If so, they still own the rulebooks, just in a different format.

 

[BronzeDragon]

Different systems just feel different. You can use any system to play any genre, sure, but sometimes you're just putting it in a costume. A specifically tailored system can make the game feel completely different, even with the exact same players and GM.

Very much this.

Running Star Wars D6 just felt very much like being in the movies.

When I tried running SW D20, I quickly found out it was a pretty good Sci-fi system, but was extremely poor at doing Star Wars. It felt clunky in all the places it should've felt fluid (in order to recreate the atmosphere of the source material).

That's just one example, many others can be recalled with barely any effort (WFRP 1E/2E vs 3E, Runequest d100 vs 13th Age, etc...). Sometimes the change in feeling is intentional, such as the many alternative ways of running Lovecraftian stuff, but these can be beneficial or interesting if that change of pace is what you are looking for. If, however, you are just expecting the different system to simply be a mechanical alternative and are then hit by a completely different rythm of play, you will likely view the experience as negative.

GURPS is notorious in how different it can feel when running different sets. Fantasy can be clunky if the DM isn't on point, Supers is barely functional as written, but modern adventures feel incredibly right when run with GURPS.

 

[Strider1973]

Yes, system matters, according to me. Playing a Fantasy Adventure or Campaign with Rolemaster is very different than playing them with D&D 5e: the approach to the game and to the adventure itself is very different from one game to the other. Even when playing within the same setting, system matters: playing in Middle Earth is very different if you use Merp instead of The One Ring, or Adventures in Middle Earth, or even The Lord of The Rings Roleplaying Game by Decipher. Even generic and universal rpgs can differ wildly and offer very different gaming experiences, depending on the system a group chooses: Gurps plays very differently from, let's say, Fate, or Cypher, or Savage Worlds.

I go a little further: in my opinion groups of players choose the game they want to play even considering the features of the system they want to use. Two groups of players may want to play Heroic Fantasy, but one of them may choose to play Pathfinder, 1e or 2e, because its players love endless possibilities of rules-wise character customization, tons of options and a crunchy and very detailed ruleset, while the other group may choose Dungeons & Dragons 5e because its players want maybe a simpler, faster, less crunchy system.

System matters, otherwise there wouldn't have been the OSR movement (besides and beyond the philosophical differences and approaches to gaming, between old school and new school games and players), or there wouldn't have been Pathfinder in the D&D 4th edition days, or, more recently, there wouldnt' even have been the Pathfinder adaptation to Savage Worlds.

In my opinion if played with the RAW approach, systems matter because they set the tone and the expectations, so to speak, according to which you play the chosen game and the adventures: if you play Middle Earth using Merp, particularly at lower levels, you'd better watch out and be wary and cautious even facing a single orc or goblin; if you play Middle Earth using The Lord of the Rings Rpg by Decipher, even playing a character with few Advancements, you can expect to slay single handedly more than one orc, and not just because the latter game may have been poorly playtested, but because the two games see characters and heroes in two very different ways. In Merp characters are slighlty better than normal people, particularly at the beginning, in a vast, threatening world, while in the Decipher Lord of the Rings RPG Characters are meant to mirror as soon as possible the Fellowship of the Ring Heroes' deeds.