Adapting generic TTRPG rulesets (notably Genesys)

[TheAlkaizer]

So, I'm continuing the TTRPG expedition that I began after the start of the pandemic. I've invested a good amount of money and time in the past two years to explore different systems: Zweihander, Symbaroum, Forbidden Lands, Vampire the Masquerade, Lancer, etc.

One type of product that I haven't approached are generic rulesets that are promoted as being adaptable to any settings. Setting-agnostic rulesets. I think that includes the well-known: GURPS and Fate. In all honesty, I had zero interest in any of these systems. My thought process is that systems that are designed to be okay at a ton of things can't possibly be better at specific things. But that might be a bad shortcut to make. I also understand that a big part of the appeal of these systems is saving time and using the same rules to play different things. But I have time to invest in learning and exploring systems, so that's not something that's really a selling-point for me.

This leads me to having a dozen people praising Fantasy Flight Games narrative dice systems, notably used in the Star Wars TTRPG. I've promised myself that I would take a loot at it and now that I'm down to two books to read on my beside table, I took half an hour to look it up. I now realized that Genesys, the system which name I've seen often in the past years, is actually the standalone version of that ruleset!

So, I will definitely look into it. Just out of professional curiosity. But I could also be interested in running it and seeing what it's good at.

So, I'm maybe more interested in Genesys; but I'm curious as to what are your experiences with generic rulesets (Genesys, Fate, GURPS) and the experience of taking a ruleset and adapting it for your setting or type of experience. Is it worth it? How much work is it? Does it really play that well in most situations or do you encounter weird issues or contradictions?

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I'm a big fan of HERO system.

I'll say up front I've invested a lot of time in learning the rules set, this makes it easy for me to jump in and start fiddling with it. It does have a steep learning curve for new GMs. For players it's not so bad - if the GM (or campaign setting) is able to walk them through the character creation part. Character creation can be intimidating - especially if you're playing at a high power level. But it's no worse than creating a high level DnD character, in fact I'd say it's easier.

In actual play it's very consistent so it's pretty easy to pick up.

Setting up for a campaign can be a lot of work if you go from scratch. But there's plenty of campaign source books and fan created content for all types of campaigns/genres. To get exactly the game you want will obviously take more work.

If there's one thing it doesn't do as well as it claims it's jumping a character from one campaign to another. For instance - you take your Spiderman expy and play them in a Hyborian Age setting (Spidey got time traveled there or something.) The two settings won't necessarily scale as you might expect. Spidey can lift 10 tonnes at a push. With a punch he can do maybe as much as 12d6 damage. All sounds very impressive. The odd thing (to me at least) is that Conan the Barbarian can also do 12d6 damage. Surely someone who can lift 10 tonnes should be able to punch harder than a mere mortal?

The reason for this is the lack of fine levels of (and I hate this word) granularity at the bottom end of the scale. The system easily allows for increasing power levels but the lower end the power scale is flattened out. My guess is that this is due to the systems origin in the Superhero genre. At the heart of it the system just doesn't feel the need to make much distinction between low level mooks.

But overall it's one of the best generic systems out there. Very flexible, very consistent.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

Setting up for a campaign can be a lot of work if you go from scratch. But there's plenty of campaign source books and fan created content for all types of campaigns/genres. To get exactly the game you want will obviously take more work.

Would you say it's easier/faster for you to adapt a sourcebook and the rules of HERO as opposed to learning a new system?

 

[Arilyn]

Fate works really well for me in a variety of genres. It's easy to learn and very adaptable. I love aspects.Cortex is really good too. It shares some similarities to Fate and is also very stretchy.

Neither one of these games suffer from being a generic system because of their adaptibility. I also find they are great as beginner games because they just make sense to players coming to the table with ideas based off their favourite shows or books. D&D generates a lot of "but why?"

 

[Fenris-77]

I find the older I get the less interest I have in generic systems, as my preferences tend to run more toward systems specifically designed for genre/style X when that's what I want, and there is no lack of games to pick from. FATE is the only 'generic' system I've used at all in the last decade I think.

Edit: In all fairness I realized that there's another factor at work here. When I was younger, the built-in flex of the generic systems was a real feature for me, especially for stuff that wasn't D&D fantasy. Now however, not only do I own a lot more games, but I'm also very happy to hack games to get the precise result I want, and generic systems aren't the systems that are fun to hack (can you even 'hack' GURPS? IDK...). Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

 

[GMMichael]

. . . I'm curious as to what are your experiences with generic rulesets (Genesys, Fate, GURPS) and the experience of taking a ruleset and adapting it for your setting or type of experience. Is it worth it? How much work is it? Does it really play that well in most situations or do you encounter weird issues or contradictions?

Is it worth the time? The money? The players? The answers depend on the question.

I put a ton of work into writing a universal RPG, so the work needed to set up a game is minimal. But players don't notice; they would prefer cool art and fluff that says stuff like, "you can summon a fire-demogorgon with your mind, for 16.5 minutes." I. e. generic rulesets need to be shone through the lens of a GM, not sold directly to players.

My game works great in a medieval setting. I haven't tried it in modern, but it's had some success in sci-fi. I think the weird issues you seek would come up when trying to run a game for one setting in a different one - not so much running a universal game in any setting.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

Is it worth the time? The money? The players? The answers depend on the question.

Worth it for the DM I guess.

As I said, without too much thought, I fail to see how a generic system could do as well/better what systems designed for a very specific type of experience. So, I guess that the appeal is the fact that you can quickly adapt such a ruleset and reuse the same rules for all type of contents. But to be worth it, it has to really deliver on the promise of being faster and easier to learn a new system.

Symbaroum is probably not the best example, because it's pretty rules-lite (for me at least). But I invested about 200$ CAD in a few books, and spent about four or five evenings reading the lore and the rules. I love it. But the designer in me is curious as to how fast and easy I could have adapted its setting (or something close) to a generic system.

 

[Gnosistika]

I prefer generic systems to bespoke systems it scratches my itch to tinker. Too many times in the past have played with a bespoke system and then tried to force another setting in to it. Generic systems give me a neutral pallet to work with, so I can draw in the elements from various settings. It al so gives me that ability to shape the game for a specific experience.

But, with all that said, my players prefer it, they are at a stage where they don't want to learn new systems and I don't blame them, after 30+ years they want familiarity. It has been good for me - Werewolf the Forsaken with Fate Core and quite a few others. Freeport, Mage the Sorcerer's Crusade, Dark Sun, Castle Falkenstein hacks with Genesys. I am messing with a Dragonlance hack for Cypher System, because they quite like the system. A friend ran Vampire the Requiem with Modern AGE a few years back.

I quite like Genesys till you reach about 400XPs then it becomes a slog with reading the dice results, at that stage my players just stop engaging with the narrative results all together. We haven't touched it in a while.

I initially bought into Cortex Prime but the response during discussion with my players have been lukewarm - they are not in the mood for yet another system fuelled by my ADD curiosity. I'm okay with that I need to keep a handle on it

 

[TheAlkaizer]

I quite like Genesys till you reach about 400XPs then it becomes a slog with reading the dice results, at that stage my players just stop engaging with the narrative results all together. We haven't touched it in a while.

So, what's your go-to generic system right now? What do you play with your players?

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Would you say it's easier/faster for you to adapt a sourcebook and the rules of HERO as opposed to learning a new system?

In general - yes. I'd save myself time by using a new HERO sourcebook instead of learning a new game. Because it is all generic I can just glance at the numbers and get a very good idea of what's what. That allows me to sit back and enjoy the world building, my own or reading someone else's.