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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 7977494" data-attributes="member: 53980">I see it as the right tool for the right job.A more tightly focused game (say Call of Cthulhu) is made to tell a certain type of story (Lovecraft-style horror) and will generally do it quite well. In theory you could tell a non-horror story using CoC, but there are arguably better systems to do that. You may end up fighting the system when trying to play that story (CoC couldn't emulate Die Hard well without significant modifications).Less focused games (such as D&D) grant a greater freedom and flexibility, but at the cost of focus. While you can tell a lot of different fantasy type stories using D&D, ultimately you are telling a D&D fantasy story (which is basically a fantasy sub genre unto itself). Telling different stories requires modifications (just look at Adventures in Middle Earth, which is designed to modify 5e to enable stories in a style similar to Tolkien's works).Then you have fairly generic systems like GURPS that are designed to allow you to play almost anything. Oftentimes, as is the case with GURPS, they require additional supplements to do a particular job (superheroes). Even when they do, they won't necessarily do that job as well as a game focused on primarily providing the experience of that genre. In my opinion, it's not unlike the choice between a screwdriver and a swiss army knife. One is going to do a particular job well, while the other can accomplish a variety of jobs but not as well.Games that are designed for a particular setting are generally focused on doing that experience well. You can remove the setting and substitute your own, but only if you take the time to understand what makes them work. If the default setting is grim dark and low magic, it probably won't be a good choice for running a high fantasy game, since it's not meant for that. However, there's a good chance that you could make it work for a different grim dark low magic setting with some effort, as long as the settings are reasonably similar conceptually.</blockquote>

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