NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7532965" data-attributes="member: 82106">But, if he didn't think system mattered, then why didn't he just write D&D supplements? Of course it mattered and Steve (whom I happen to have had the pleasure of playtesting games for in that time period) was VERY VERY aware of how different systems created different sorts of games, that's the sort of stuff we all talked about endlessly back in the day. Now, they had different ideas and theories than we have now, but system, and play methodology was central. They just hadn't worked out the sort of more sophisticated ways to arrange it that we have come up with today. Yes, there was a strong school of thought back in those days that creating a hyper-realistic game would somehow unlock some sort of magically wonderful story power, but we know now that was a silly idea. It isn't in any way shape or form similar to the idea that system doesn't matter. I literally know of NOBODY that said that! The two of them think in different ways. Steve is a very talented guy. I agree, his sentiment about GURPS was naive and proved incorrect. He'd probably be the first to say so. Note that he spends little to no time on GURPS today. I'm sure he's fond of his creation, but I think he understands that it was a limited concept. His current games are much more like indy RPGs than anything else IMHO.Well, that was one school, the 'wargamer' kind of school who wanted playability and at least realism in the areas that mattered to them, maybe fighting, maybe skills, maybe social interaction, depended on the genre and goals of the game.However, most of us were not really concerned with realism. There was a thought that maybe sometimes a great lack of realism could lead to a weird sort of game. I mean, people would often cite high level D&D fighters who could jump off cliffs and etc. without harm as kind of weird, but mostly we just thought it was awesome when it was our character that got to do that! Well, yes and no. They addressed the same concerns. They were often just simplistic in their expression and drew conclusions which lacked the benefit of 40+ years of game play and design experience. Well, I think it was expressed in T&T in about 1976, at the latest!But system DOES matter in Paranoia, because the whole mechanics of the game pushes things in the direction it is intended to go. You couldn't possibly run that game using the rules of most RPGs. You need a system that allows for anyone to die horribly at any time and where 'advancement' doesn't help with that problem (at least not in a straightforward mechanical way, high programmers MIGHT be safer than basic troubleshooters in a narrative sense). I mean, sure, you could probably adapt BRP or maybe Traveler's core mechanical systems to produce a similar result. There's always more than one way to express at least some of the details of a game. I'd also surely note that if Paranoia was written today it would be VERY different, and maybe better.Boot Hill is most definitely a niche game. Its rules cover one thing, fighting with guns, knives, tomahawks, bows, spears, and maybe dynamite. It tells you how to lay out a western frontier town and play out barfights, gunfights, bank robberies, etc. There are NO rules for anything else, at all. Well, I think there's a rule for gambling and cheating at cards, which is basically an excuse to start shooting. That's it. This is a very niche game. The GENRE might not be niche, and perhaps you could expand the game if you wanted to, but its designers had one thing in mind. Characters take literally 1 minute to roll up (3 tosses of d% and writing down a couple numbers, buy a gun, start fightin'). Most sessions included at least 1 and often up to 3 deaths per player. We played 100s of hours of this game, and even so I can only remember ONE character that survived for more than maybe 2 sessions.</blockquote>

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