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

[payn]

Agreed. Continuing down that rabbit hole of thought, I believe there are other systems that are flexible enough to convert most ideas and settings in a similar way. We don't see those very often from publishers because the motive is to broaden their market. Obviously, you're not going to waste a lot of time or money tapping into smaller markets or audiences than your own.

Savage Worlds immediately comes to mind as a system designed for flexibility and adaptability. I think Deadlands actually thrives better using this ruleset than their own.

Genesys was born from the core system of the Star Wars RPG. They stripped it down, refined it, and made it suitable for non-specific settings and IPs. But I found the specific settings (Terrinoth, Netrunner) were more interesting than the idea of having "generic" rules themselves. It's like unpainted miniatures; they may look interesting when you buy them, but you still need to do some work before you can enjoy their full potential.

Modiphius seems to have figured out their own formula for their game systems. Perhaps a generic system is just really a collecton of mechanics you can use for whatever game you want to play. Assuming the mechanics are designed for the kind of play you enjoy.

I think past attempts where for universal. No need for modules or adjustment, this system is built to do everything. The modern approach seems to be more of a base foundation mechanic like Gensys, YZE, PbtA, etc.. that adds flavor on top as a finishing touch.

 

[Reynard]

I think past attempts where for universal. No need for modules or adjustment, this system is built to do everything. The modern approach seems to be more of a base foundation mechanic like Gensys, YZE, PbtA, etc.. that adds flavor on top as a finishing touch.

House systems have been around since the early days of the hobby.

 

[payn]

House systems have been around since the early days of the hobby.

Sure, maybe the "true" universal system idea has just died out then.

So, going back to the OP now that ive had my thoughts jogged, id say I need at least two settings for comparison. Does the foundation work on its own? Then, does it work as Star Wars? If yes, then can I make it also work for Star Trek? The perception of usefulness and ease of implementation is gonna be the determinant of a good generic/universal system for me.

 

[Reynard]

Sure, maybe the "true" universal system idea has just died out then.

Savage Worlds is still an ongoing game system with lots of support. Mythras is still active, I believe, and I assume we would put true toolkits like Cortex Prime in the same category.

 

[chuckdee]

Sure, but that was never a claim or the question. The question was whether YOU, when looking to use a generic system, have setting you like to test the system against because that setting pretty well covers your preferences in a way that tells you whether the system will work for you.

No, for that very reason. As I don't want a variety of systems, I use a system du jour that is flexible enough for me to mold as I want to adapt all the settings. So the litmus test isn't based on a particular setting, but whether it aligns with my sensibilities. This aim hearkens back to my statement.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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

Sure, I'm just saying that's pretty much orthogonal to whether the thread stays on topic.

 

[Thomas Shey]

"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 think more broadly, its "style". Its going to impact how the game session would come across even if narrated to others, because its capable of (probably even demanding of) attention to factors your game finds unimportant.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.)

The problem with that is while its a functional way to represent running out of ammo in isolation, its completely disconnected from, well, how much ammo you actually have; even if the GM is making some effort to not deploy it thoughtlessly, it has no real relationship to how much ammo has actually been used, even in a fiction-related sense. It just represents the specific effect in the moment.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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?

Well, there are a couple of matters at hand here.

1. How "generic" 5e is as a system is very, very much in the eye of the beholder. As someone noted upthread, you can have serious questions how generic it is even in heroic fantasy, and the farther you get from that the more debateable it gets.

2. Even the people trying to use 5e as the all-purpose power-tool usually rework some elements of it for the matter at hand. There's a difference between a generic system (that can be at least moderately widely used as-is in a satisfactory way) and a basic mechanical framework (often called a "house system") that is used to build custom games off it. I believe some people mentioned the 2D20 system farther up and it clearly lands in this, rather than being a generic system per se (or even intended as one).

 

[Thomas Shey]

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

I'd argue that's more a tool-of-convenience issue; any halfway coherent system can be repurposed if you want to, but it very much can turn into hammering a nail with a wrench. 5e is particularly prone to this because the combination of familiarity and the publication benefits associated with that will encourage its use in that way when someone would be unlikely to do that with most other standalone systems.