Really, how important is the system/edition?

[BryonD]

However, the campaign of Iron Heroes I played made me extremely unhappy because the class balance was so out of whack for the PC I was playing.

It's 4E's fault.
And yes, I'm saying that for the humor value.

But seriously, I was very enthused about IH, and very let down. There is some brilliance in that game. And a lot of clunk. And my personal theory is that Mike was cranking away on making a great IH when WotC came knocking on his door. So it got a bow put on top and was declared complete.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Thanks for the complement!

FYI, here's a link to the thread in which I talk about that campaign.

Hmmm, I cannot help but combine the top two ideas from your post in that thread to have superheroes battling Martians, some ten years after the first failed invasion of H. G. Wells' time....

The Auld Grump

 

[Gothmog]

The most important factor by far in running/playing a game is the group. A great group can make any game fun, and conversely a terrible group can ruin the best game ever made. I've been fortunate to be in almost entirely good groups over the years, but I've been in a few bad ones (mostly at cons and game days) which were cringe-worthy.

That said, edition and system do make a difference. If I am not excited about playing or running a certain system, then the game will be lacking in ways it might not be if I played a game I enjoyed more. One the other hand, a system that gets my creative juices flowing makes me want to play/run it more, and leads to a more satisfying gaming experience. 4e is a system that excites my group, and really engages me to be creative and look forward to every session. In contrast, 3e was a horrible fit for our playstyle. Thats the main reason my groups won't touch 3e/Pathfinder with a 10 foot pole.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Therei s also the issue of what kind of player a game attracts. Some games, notably Mutants and Masterminds, are child's play to abuse and make overpowered characters. Other games are more balanced, and I certainly prefer the latter.

As otehrs have said, it is also importnat how well the gmae excites you and fits with the group's playstyle. If it is too far off, the game system can damage the group and the group's enjoyment of the gaming session. I know there are games I would never p@lay, eithr for not liking the genre, the gmae system itself, or other reasons.

The gaming system is importnat.

 

[Engilbrand]

Who would honestly play F.A.T.A.L. or World of Cynibar? If, like me, you answered in the negative, then system matters.

 

[Obryn]

Who would honestly play F.A.T.A.L. or World of Cynibar? If, like me, you answered in the negative, then system matters.

I bought the Synnibarr core book at Gen Con a few years back, and I keep having a dream of running an adventure for Circvs/Kay people at another Gen Con in the future.

I would totally play a Synnibarr game, just for the insanity value.

-O

 

[Afrodyte]

Who would honestly play F.A.T.A.L. or World of Cynibar? If, like me, you answered in the negative, then system matters.

Ditto RaHoWa

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Ditto RaHoWa

I'd run that for my Zionist Illuminati buddies. In Compton.

(I'm a black guy.)

 

[Korgoth]

I think the "species" of a system is less important than its "genus", if you'll permit the expression. Generically, a rules-lite game differs from a rules-heavy game in the kind of play experience it delivers, and how much the particular style of the Ref influences that experience.

Also, a dice-heavy system differs from a dice-lite system in a similar regard. This is an underappreciated distinction: does everything that you do get resolved by a roll, or are the decisions that you make more important in themselves? A classic example is the "Search roll": is it more important that you chose to spend time/resources looking somewhere, or that you rolled high when you did so? If the focus of the game is on the decision, and rewards a good decision and/or punishes a bad decision, then it's probably dice-lite. If the game instead rewards only high rolls and punishes only low rolls (or the equivalent), then it's dice-heavy.

Another practical example of the latter dichotomy: social interactions. In dice-heavy games, I've actually seen people say things like "I say something persuasive" and chuck a D20. That's because it doesn't matter (or at least only matters about 10%) if you actually say anything reasonable... what matters is if you roll high plus your Talk skill. That delivers an entirely different play experience from a dice-lite game in which whether you influenced the NPC depends on what you actually said. In a dice-heavy game, you may never get to hear any clever role play; in a dice-lite game, a painful introvert cannot play the party's face man.

The specifics of a system often don't matter too much... but the underlying philosophy of a system matters a great deal.

 

[Ariosto]

The dice- or rules-heaviness of a game is something that theoretically can be adjusted. Practically, that may be more or less work depending on how integrated versus modular the design is. Probably most significant are the expectations of players, and that "gamer culture" is shaped in turn by how the game is presented. It's partly a matter of selection: People inclined to place great importance on "official rules" and "carefully engineered balance" are less likely to dig the tenor of (e.g.) Tunnels & Trolls in the first place.

General ethos can be conveyed even before getting down to mechanical details. There's an Exalted book with an "homage" to the first cover of the 1e PHB, that in style presents a very striking contrast.

... in a dice-lite game, a painful introvert cannot play the party's face man.

Unless someone's too introverted to play an RPG in the first place, that should not be a problem. I am pretty introverted, and more to the point a bit clumsy (by "hard wiring") in the social interaction department -- very far from ever being a salesman (or for that matter an actor on stage and screen)!

Despite that, I am a fan of bringing role-playing into such encounters. The key is that it's the substance of the overture that matters, not the artfulness of one's thespian delivery.

What I've found in recent dice-heavy games is that the concept of "role playing" has shifted away from approaching problems from the character's perspective (as the player's number-crunching replaces that) and toward the sort of "acting" that entails accents and mannerisms. That may create in some minds misleading assumptions as to how things must work in a game in which role-playing is actually an integral (indeed the essential) part of play.

That brings us back to how expectations shape the way mechanisms are used, and how design and presentation are more or less compatible with different approaches.

When social skill ratings, combat powers and other factors are wrapped up in a "zero-sum" sub-game, especially one that in various ways (including sheer volume of rules and assumed investment of time and energy) is elevated to great psychological importance, then people tend pretty naturally to oppose weakening the influence of those factors.

It is in my experience easier to "house rule" a game from rules-light to rules-heavy than vice-versa. Something like 3e is one possible end-point if one starts adding chrome to Original D&D, something like 4e another. Empire of the Petal Throne, Metamorphosis Alpha, Chivalry & Sorcery, Villains & Vigilantes, Starships & Spacemen, Arduin, RuneQuest, Advanced D&D, Gamma World, RoleMaster, Palladium ... a host of games arose from such tinkering. The more complex the offspring, the trickier it is to "repurpose" them.

My default "go-to" game is the systematic but extremely modular Basic Role Playing foundation underlying Chaosium's RPGs (most famously Call of Cthulhu). I find it a bit awkward for vastly superhuman characters -- D&D might work for a scenario involving the likes of the Crimson Bat, but I can't see doing that in RQ -- just as games designed with comic-book heroes especially in mind tend to be less satisfactory to me when applied to grittier, "street-level" topics.