Setting or System - whichever applies to you?

[Jhaelen]

Both and neither, I guess?!

The setting has to appeal to me or I won't be interested regardless of the system.

But the inverse is also true: E.g. if there was announcement that they'd release a Star Wars RPG (a setting that interests me) based on D&D 5th edition rules, I'd pass.
An actual example would be 'Adventures in Middle-earth'. There's simply no way this can be better than using 'The One Ring' RPG,
a system that has been created specifically to support the kind of stories that evoke a 'Tolkinesque' feeling.

There are a few instances where I got curious how a system was adapted to the setting. An example for this is 'Ashen Stars'.
I already knew and really liked 'Trail of Cthulhu' and wanted to see how the Gumshoe system worked in a Sci-Fi setting.

But mostly I prefer systems that have been created specifically for a given setting. Generic or setting-agnostic systems usually don't have much appeal for me.

 

[Campbell]

I am not really all that interested in settings or systems. I am interested in games.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The question doesn't make sense. The system is the setting. Palladium Rifts is a fundamentally different place from Savage Rifts, because the former is grounded in causal processes and the latter operates on narrative causality.

I guess you could say that I'll check out any game with a setting that doesn't operate on narrative principles, but there's no real difference between saying that and just saying that I like systems that exclude narrative mechanics.

 

[Imaculata]

I'm more of a setting person, although any settings related to a popular movie, series of books, or tv show is an instant turn off for me. Me and my group all play 3.x, so any settings that follow 3.x or pathfinder rules will automatically be of interest to us. Thats a pretty big sea of settings to fish from.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The system is the setting.

Not really. I mean, it can be, but the two are not irrevocably linked. There are a host of flexible, generic systems that basically prove that: HERO, GURPS, Savage Worlds, etc.

Besides that, many settings have been done in multiple systems. Licensed properties like Star Trek or Star Wars; any RPG that has had multiple editions with settings that appear in more than a single iteration of the game*; any RPG that has licensed its setting(s) to be used with other systems**.

* D&D, Traveller, Paranoia, WoD, others

** Space:1889, WoD, Deadlands, others

 

[GMMichael]

#1, Setting please. I really don't care if My Little Pony is the new expansion for FATE, I'm still not even going to look at it. (I have good peripheral vision...)

Now, when I open up the new Game of Thrones: Night's Watch Adventures and see that it's based on a game system that uses non-numerical symbols on dice, I'll start having doubts. But the fluff could still make it worthwhile.

 

[Blue]

Erm. I don't even have an answer if you assume those two points are a spectrum.

First, I find I mostly dislike licensed IP settings. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but I dislike when you end up playing "the Han Solo but a female Rodian" or the "Worf-as-Doctor" type, and the stories are tied tightly to the people so it takes a real DM to break off something that isn't a copy of the Serenity or Dresden or whatever. There are exceptions - Marvel Heroic Roleplay I was willing to do, and we brainstormed about a Dresden-universe game in New Jersey right after Hurricane Sandy where all that salt water washed away long-time wards from several of the original colonies. But that's the exception.

I have a few "setting" RPGs - where I really like the rules and would use it for most any game that fits it's genre. For example, I love Champions (*cough*Hero System) for superhero.

But really, RPGs have gotten mature and I want something beyond swiftly moving and solid rulesets (though that's the minimal price of admission). So I really do like setting that are significantly different from the generic in the genre and the mechanics back that up. Things like Icon relationship dice in 13th Age. Or if a system really did let you have the strength of ten men because your heart was pure - and that willpower was a component of their setting.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Not really. I mean, it can be, but the two are not irrevocably linked. There are a host of flexible, generic systems that basically prove that: HERO, GURPS, Savage Worlds, etc.

If GURPS had a Rifts supplement, then GURPS Rifts would be a different setting from Savage Rifts in every way that I care about, because the most important detail of any setting (to me) is whether it operates entirely on internal causality or whether it's influenced by narrative concerns.

If I'm in my Glitterboy, and I fire my boom gun at some SAMAS, then I need to know that the result of that attack depends entirely on the underlying physical properties of my boom gun and my skill at firing and the structural integrity of that SAMAS and so on. If it just explodes because it's a mook and nobody is supposed to care, then that's a chain of causality which doesn't make any internal sense, and I cannot possibly become invested in such a setting.

As far as the world and how it works, GURPS Rifts has more in common with GURPS Shadowrun than GURPS Shadowrun would have with Savage Shadowrun. Altering the basic rules of interaction has a greater effect on the setting than altering the macro-scale constructs that provide the surface appearance of the setting.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

GURPS has mooks? (Never ran it, so I wouldn't know.) HERO doesn't, though you can make them.

Anyway, instead of comparing a RIFTS that doesn't exist to one that does, how about comparing versions that both do? I haven't heard too many complaints about Savage World's RIFTS being so different in its setting and feel as compared to the Palladium original. At least, not in ways that make people miffed.

Personally, I enjoyed RIFTS as a setting, and played many campaigns in it. I was actually starting a process of doing a HERO version of it, but life intervened before I got to address the issue of how I wanted to handle Mega Damage. I have no doubt, though, that such a thing could be done while staying true to the source material. I had done that making a Fantasy HERO version of D&D covering multiple editions, and had made copious notes on a Fantasy HERO M:tG setting before I figured out my current game group had no interest in HERO whatsoever.

And if I can do that, I'm pretty sure pro RPG designers can do so as well. If they so intend.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

GURPS has mooks? (Never ran it, so I wouldn't know.)

No, it doesn't, and that's the point. If you convert a world for use in GURPS, then the language of the system forces it into a shape where only internal factors are relevant. There is no place in the equation for the importance of a character within the story to influence its capabilities.

Anyway, instead of comparing a RIFTS that doesn't exist to one that does, how about comparing versions that both do? I haven't heard too many complaints about Savage World's RIFTS being so different in its setting and feel as compared to the Palladium original. At least, not in ways that make people miffed.

I was excited about Savage Rifts, before it came out, because the Palladium ruleset is kind of clunky and hard to use. After subsequently reading the core Savage Worlds rulebook, I didn't even bother picking up Savage Rifts, because I knew that I would hate it.

You aren't going to see a lot of complaints about how the change in ruleset changes the tone of the setting, because the kinds of people who would be bothered by that are not the kind of people to pick up Savage Rifts in the first place. The target demographic for Savage Rifts is players who enjoy Savage Worlds.