Do you have a "litmus test" setting for generic rule sets?

[soviet]

"It's not what a movie is about, it's how it is about it." - Roger Ebert

To me, this is the essential point.

I designed a generic game (Other Worlds). It can do absolutely any genre. But it will do them in an Other Worlds way, where character backgrounds matter, players have a certain level of narrative authority, and story logic has weight.

What it can't do is detailed resource management or grid-based tactical combat. But that isn't genre that's playstyle.

 

[pemerton]

Agreed. When I first wanted to run the Issaries RPG HeroQuest, I let the players choose what setting they wanted to use it for and they said Star Wars, which worked well.

As best I can recall, I don't think I've ever run a "generic"/"universal" RPG. But if I did, it would probably be HeroQuest Revised.

Another possibility would be Story Bones (Maelstrom Storytelling without the setting).

 

[soviet]

As best I can recall, I don't think I've ever run a "generic"/"universal" RPG. But if I did, it would probably be HeroQuest Revised.

Another possibility would be Story Bones (Maelstrom Storytelling without the setting).

Many people recommend Other Worlds, and also its author is apparently very handsome.

 

[pemerton]

"It's not what a movie is about, it's how it is about it." - Roger Ebert

To me, this is the essential point.

I designed a generic game (Other Worlds). It can do absolutely any genre. But it will do them in an Other Worlds way, where character backgrounds matter, players have a certain level of narrative authority, and story logic has weight.

What it can't do is detailed resource management or grid-based tactical combat. But that isn't genre that's playstyle.

I get what you're saying, but I have a feeling that at least some aspects of genre and some aspects of playstyle overlap.

I feel an ammo-tracking combat system, for instance, doesn't fit well with space opera genre, but suggests something more Tom Clancy-esque.

I'm happy to concede it's tricky/subtle - eg something Jason Bourne-esque has the veneer of Clancy-esque-ness but would probably suffer if we used ammo-tracking.

Here's a question: suppose the ruleset allows a "hard move" along the lines of You're out of ammo! That supports genre, but also playstyle - it does make resources matter in some fashion. And not every generic system will necessarily permit that sort of move from the GM.

(EDIT: That turned out not to really be a question, but more a prompt to thoughts/reflection. Hopefully it still makes sense.)

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Weird. I thought everyone was happy converting their own game systems and ideas everything using 5e. Does that make D&D a generic system, or has the premise of a generic system become moot at this point?

 

[Parmandur]

IMO Star Wars is as close to an all encompassing milieu as you can get, so it makes for a great test bed.

70s/80s Marvel is more all-encompassing: everything in Star Wars, plus more.

 

[payn]

Weird. I thought everyone was happy converting their own game systems and ideas everything using 5e. Does that make D&D a generic system, or has the premise of a generic system become moot at this point?

I was thinking about that and I believe the sheer amount of 5E conversions proves its a flexible, but limited, universal system.

 

[Umbran]

Noted. And I'm not always hesitant to say that I don't agree with the premise so I don't agree with the conclusion in a discussion. But it still seems like denying-of-premise ends up essentially attempting to swing a thread hard into an entirely different discussion, and I'm not sure I consider that particularly a useful way to go.

1) With respect, a "hard" turn into a different discussion would be, like starting with damage on a miss, and ending with... cake vs pie. Going from, "I test generic games this way, How about you?" to "Generic games... not so generic?" is a slight turn, still original topic adjacent.

2) Useful to whom? The content here is largely democratized - folks talk about what they want to talk about. If they didn't want to stick strictly to your topic, maybe that's telling you something about your original topic's utility to anyone but yourself.

 

[Parmandur]

I was thinking about that and I believe the sheer amount of 5E conversions proves its a flexible, but limited, universal system.

I would agree that it shows that a system does not need to explicitly have universal ambitions to be engineered to do something else.

 

[Umbran]

Oh, sure, but many a good thread has been killed by a 2 poster sniping war.

Note: There is a difference between "two people talking past each other" and "two people sniping". That's why I gave the caveat about staying within the rules.