System Free Scenarios and Settings: Curse or Cure?

[Ariosto]

Midkemia Press did some stuff with stats for their own game, but I don't think ever published the game itself. They also contributed to Chaosium's massively multi-system Thieves' World boxed set. That was due mainly to their classic Cities and Carse (at least the former of which Chaosium picked up for a slightly more RuneQuest-tuned edition).

A Midkemia scenario, "Hard Times in Hoxley", appeared in Sorcerers Apprentice magazine (T&T-focused) with very sparse and "generic" stats. I found it quite easy to use with several different rules-sets. As with, e.g., the AD&D modules T1 The Village of Hommlet, L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, L2 The Assassin's Knot and U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, the strength score of X and hit points of Y were not the big draw. The portrait of a place and its people, and the setting up of a situation, provided the really valuable and time-saving material.

FBI/Blade's series of "City" books has already been mentioned as an outstanding value. The Grimtooth's Traps volumes are also toothsome in a Trollish way.

The Game Lords published a series called Thieves Guild that was fun although I don't recall ever using the GL "game system" that was published in the installments -- except maybe for some rules of special importance to a given scenario.

They also published a few modules that were about as "generic" -- which is to say, really designed for D&D -- as those that Judges Guild was publishing after TSR withdrew its licensing. They simply were not very good regardless, although I think JG turned out some good stuff along with the dross. So did Mayfair in the Role Aids line.

Actually, the City of Haven modules from Game Lords were quite good; Mines of Keridav exemplifies the lackluster to poor product I had in mind.

Iron Crown Enterprises put out The Iron Wind, IIRC, before the RoleMaster game system. ICE got the prestigious Tolkien license and made Middle Earth Role Playing a line second only to Columbia Games' gorgeous Hârn (especially in cartography). The latter was well established before Columbia released the associated rules set, and I reckon ICE's scenarios were more popular than the MERP game.

Steve Jackson's GURPS world books likewise see wider use than the game mechanics.

The cream of the "generic" crop in the late 1980s may have been the British (?) firm that produced at least one deluxe set besides the Dwarf-halls the title of which escapes me at the moment. I remember play using RuneQuest, but I don't think it was written for RQ in particular.

Jeffrey C. Dillow's High Fantasy game never got much recognition, but folks acquainted with the scenarios (e.g., "Fortress Ellendar" and "Moorguard") seem to hold those in high regard.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

The cream of the "generic" crop in the late 1980s may have been the British (?) firm that produced at least one deluxe set besides the Dwarf-halls the title of which escapes me at the moment. I remember play using RuneQuest, but I don't think it was written for RQ in particular.

It was a series of three boxed sets ("Halls of the Dwarven Kings", "Watchers of the Sacred Flame", "The Feathered Priests") and one title ("The Lost Shrine of Kasar-Khan") produced in a more classical way. The boxed sets had a special book with the opponents' stats given for RuneQuest and AD&D, where the AD&D stats were a bit mangled to avoid copyright issues.

The same company - I'll have to look up the name when I'm at home - also published the gaming magazine Tortured Souls, I think 12 volumes of it. The magazine was very GM-oriented, with adventures setting material, rules, and what not. All the stuff was thinly veiled AD&D-material.

A few years later, the campaign was re-edited and published by Games Workshop under the Flame label as the Border Princes campaign for WFRP.

 

[delericho]

I might be interested in a systemless setting. Well, if I were interested in a setting at all - between Eberron and Golarion, I'm pretty much covered.

I wouldn't be at all interested in a systemless scenario, any more than I would be interested in converting Pathfinder adventures to 4e, 4e adventures to Pathfinder, or even Pathfinder adventures to 3.5e. I have enough adventures that I can afford to be fussy - if something doesn't do what I need out of the box, then I'll get something else that does.

 

[nedjer]

Not at all surprised the ideal solution remains system specific.

Systems that use a translation system sound a right nightmare. Settings and slot in traps and the like seem more easy to adapt.

I'll take a look at the suggested scenarios though, as stats seem to be the main sticking point. Does a generic stat/ definition that's easy to reach for help for those who prefer curse to cure?

E.g. it's a Purple Lich with a +15% Royal Nanchuck of Doom and an Epigean Crown. 20 Ethereal Zombies with +7% Imperial Nanchucks of Fear guard . . . GM falls to knees.

or

E.g. it's a Lich with a Battleaxe and 20 Zombies guards also armed with Battleaxes. As you enter the Lich sets down its Jewelled Crown and unwraps its bandages. The Zombies advance and suddenly you can't tell the Lich from the Zombies.

 

[Beginning of the End]

To reduce the waste it maybe makes sense to set aside some doubts and ask, 'what's the best way to go multi-system or system free with scenarios and settings?'

Don't do it.

Re: System free.

(1) They've been tried before. They have never, ever been successful in the entire history of the industry.

(2) People generally use published scenarios because they either can't or don't want to do the prep themselves. System-free scenarios still require you to do the mechanical prep (which is the part of prep most people like the least).

(3) Anyone who uses scenarios despite needing to do mechanical adaptation is usually flexible-minded enough to realize that they can just ignore the stat blocks belonging to some other system and treat the adventure as if it were system-free.

(4) System free is largely an illusion. The only place it even vaguely applies is "generic fantasy", but "generic fantasy" is a label that still covers a multitude of sins. Any given "generic fantasy" game will have subtly different expectations about the power relationship between PCs, orcs, ogres, giants, and dragons (for example).

Re: Multi-system.

(1) It's illusionary for the same reasons system-free is an illusion.

(2) It's hard enough putting together a functional and useful format for a single system. (Most companies fail miserably.) Trying to include the information for two systems while still having the product be functional and useful is even more difficult if not impossible.

(3) For the consumer, there is virtually no added utility from the multi-system approach. Multi-system is theoretically useful for the publisher (who can theoretically market it to customers using both systems), but for the customer it's a negative value. The only way it provides utility for the customer is if they're planning to run the adventure twice -- once for each system being supported.

So while it looks, at first glance, as if you should be increasing your customer base, you are actually shrinking it. A lot.

You are always going to be better off either (a) picking a horse and riding it or (b) publishing two different versions of the material (one for each system). The latter is expensive, obviously, although in a digital age it might be more applicable. (Although the extra development costs can't be ignored.)

If you do that, you can rest assured that virtually everyone flexible-minded enough to buy system-free material is still going to be willing to give your material a shot.

For setting material, the standards may be a little different (although there has never been a successful system-free setting). DMP has gone system-minimal on its City Supplements (see sig), but city supplements aren't exactly know for having lots of mechanical material in the first place.

 

[Roger]

what's the best way to go multi-system or system free with scenarios and settings?

Write a novel or three. Has worked out well for Tolkien, Martin, and many others.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[Ariosto]

Better than "generic fantasy", I should think, would be "generic modern world".

Different games may have different treatments of an AK-74 or Lotus Esprit -- but only the game in play really matters.

I reckon that different people may have different ideas of what "successful" means. However, I would note that Hârn sold well enough "system free" to warrant bringing the Hârnmaster rules to market; it was simply not the other way around.

It indeed seems likely that most people in the market for a system-free supplement are quite capable of ignoring system-specific data. The big and pervasive stat blocks for some games make that a bit difficult.

Those are also the games for which people are most probably going to demand game-specific scenarios. If it takes an hour to write up stats, then there's clear value in their provision.

If it's easy to come up with stuff on the fly, then something like D20 System boilerplate is more of a drag; at the least, it means so many fewer pages of material really useful to a non-D20-System referee.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

A couple thoughts:

Statless adventures have a higher value when coupled "rules light" systems where on-the-fly stat generation is simple, and a lower value when used with heavier systems with lots of crunch. (That is, if I'm running a high crunch system, I'd rather have all that work done for me, but with a light system it's not an issue.)

Even when an adventure is statless, it may still favor one system or type of system over another, because of the way the encounters are structured, paced, laid out, et cetera, or for other reasons. For example, a statless dungeon adventure designed with 1e AD&D in mind might not have maps and encounters that are suited for 4e.

 

[Rechan]

I'm cool with Systemless stuff. What I would like to see would be scenarios that are encounters or small sites of interest you can drop into a game. For instance "Big Book of Roleplaying Encounters" or "Big Book of Encounters on the Road". Similar to the books "En Route" but with no stats.

Or even "Big Book of Little Places" - the latter being "Here's a church, the NPCs there. Here's a refugee camp, the NPCs there." Similar to the Foul Locale books, with no stats. Toss in some Quests or subplots/adventre hook/seeds relating to each Place, and you got yourself an interesting book.

Isn't this what was done with the various Freeport books? I coulda sworn there were a few Freeport books that were systemless. (Cults of Freeport for instance).

 

[Ariosto]

Judges Guild's Frontier Forts of Kelnore was an official D & D product, and mentioned -- without listing stats -- a few monsters peculiar to that game*. Other than in that very minor detail, it was extremely portable. With a little work, it might do for campaigns on the Limes of the Imperium Romanum, or the Northwest Frontier of the Raj.

The purpose of this installment is to provide the Judge with a short, two to three hour adventure in an easily organized and moderated form. Every time the installment is utilized, a different set-up occurs. Each time the physical arrangement of the fort ranges from slightly different to wildly different.

That was accomplished with rolls on 21 tables. Those generated current physical conditions, but left it to the DM to create any "back story" explaining circumstances. The process may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's a great resource for many.

*There were "stat blocks" in the example dungeons, but those were mostly along the lines of "Wolves 8 AC 7 HD 2+2 Attacks Bite 2-5, Treasure - None".