Let's Talk About "Intended Playstyle"

[payn]

That sort of repurposing is the YZ engine working as intended: it has a strong framework for general play, and then tools to dial it into a specific genre and/or playstyle. It is what makes it a good house system. As opposed to, say, d20 which was not as good of a house system.

Yeap, I think d20 was first and foremost built to be a Swiss army knife for power leveling fantasy. Thats is a good thing, but its also a only good for a general thing. Which is why horror, cyberpunk, mecha, anime, etc.. All just feel like D&D when using D20/5E.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

Interesting. I find the investigative stuff and conspiramids and such from NBA to be great, but the actual combat system is a slog and is not Jason Bourne or John Wick for me.

I found it pretty fast to run combats and with experienced agents they did feel significantly high-powered. People were pushing opponents out windows, making called shots, using preparedness to activate traps, using MOS to do way over the top stuff (like jumping between helicopters) — that sort of stuff. I would recommend the Double Tap expansion book for a lot of extra combat options also — that got used a lot. Maybe I’m remembering selectively, but I don’t recall slogfests. If anything, combats could go very fast when players spend to go first, spend to do a called shot on the heart and then spend for damage. As a GM I leaned to make sure that any vampire I cared about had vampiric speed, or else they might never get an attack in!