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Message: <blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 9311629" data-attributes="member: 86653">Exactly. System matters because it provides that narrower range of options and explicitly pushes a particular style of play. System provides limits to the imagination and points it in a particular direction. In other words, system provides focus. But, the thing most people miss is that system is not the only way to provide focus.You see this all the time in live plays where the system is D&D but the play is a magic shop or a deeply dramatic game of character interaction as the focus. Gamers yell at the screen when they see this and wonder why they don't use a specific game that's custom made to provide the experience those players seem to be after. But they miss the forest for the trees. System is not the only way to provide focus.The referee and players can provide that focus themselves regardless of the system used. As long as the system itself doesn't actively fight against what you're trying to do, or as long as you put in house rules that can get the system out of your way, just about any system can be used to tell just about any kind of story.If the referee and players make something matter at the table, then it matters. Regardless of the system. For example, you absolutely could play Agon using D&D as long as the referee and players made the concerns of the gods matter...as long as the table makes virtues matter. You don't need mechanical support in a game system to make something matter at your table. If your table focuses on it, then it matters. Look at Critical Role. They're using D&D 5E to tell really deeply RP heavy stories with smatterings of combat between long monologues, dramatic backstory reveals, and shopping trips.But, that's also why I vastly prefer generic systems to bespoke. Because it's easier to do anything you want with a generic system than a bespoke one. It's also why I prefer rules light or rules ultra-light games to heavier ones, there's less to get out of your way. As mentioned a few times in the thread, having to learn a brand new 300+ page bespoke system for every random game idea you have is just too much. Which is why, I suspect, people bend systems they know into odd shapes to play other types of games and why people just keep playing the same kind of game over and over and over again. Gimme a page or two of rules that can be used for anything and I'm set.</blockquote>

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