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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8143133" data-attributes="member: 82106">But nobody seems to be able to agree on what those principles are, and while there are some fairly insightful people who seem to have a handle on what specifically in the system created the game play experience of, say, Holmes Basic (which is a pretty good distillation of the OD&D game play process with some clarifications). However, there are a lot of people who just seem to believe that you have to play virtually exactly the game that Gary developed, and must use a crazy quilt of different dice for everything, and other rather dubious ideas (I mean, maybe the nostalgia factor of these is the point for them, but many times it is confused with some kind of game design concept).The idea that "system doesn't matter" should, by this late date, be utterly disposed of. Anyone still spouting that, IMHO, lacks critical experience. I mean, I've met some very 'strong' GMs who simply have a 'system' in their heads, and whatever game they run gets mutated into an implementation of their process. FOR THEM it may be 'true', but it is simply the exception which proves the rule. These are people for whom the system is THEM, it just isn't written down. I used to play with a guy like this. No matter what game we played, it turned into a version of his RP experience. Even if it started out as Monopoly. To be honest, a lot of people couldn't stand it, but he always had an enthusiastic group of core players and no problem finding more. But don't ever confuse this with 'normal', he is the least normal person I have ever met! (in a nice way, great person). You or I could not ever reproduce what he does. For US, we have systems which produce the 'structure' of the game, and shape its experience.In fact, I would like to say, I'm a 'by the book' GM. When I go buy a game I run it exactly as written. I rarely make house rules (I will add homebrew material if its called for). I have found that many people ignore a lot of the details of a specific game, so I may play quite differently from what everyone else THINKS the game is. When I've talked to game designers I usually find that what I'm doing is closer to what they imagined, but not always...</blockquote>

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