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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jdrakeh" data-source="post: 2711840" data-attributes="member: 13892">I have absolutely no idea how far I will get with The Grand Experiement, but I figured that I'd post about it here just in case anybody else is interested in trying it out on their own tables. So, what is The Grand Experiment? System matters. It always has. Every sustem imparts its own unique cosmology upon a given setting or adventure. For instance, the low-level group of PCs in D&D that face off against a horde of zombies are likely to walk away victorious, while a low-level group of Companions in Ars Magica that face off against a horde of zombies is likely to go home in tarred pine boxes. Every system has its own unique artifacts (i.e., system-specific quirks) that foster a certain tone, pace, and type of action in a given game. For example, D&D characters improve exponentially over relatively short periods of time simply by doing things, while RuneQuest characters may or may not learn simply by doing, and must make a roll to determine what - if anything - they learn from an experience. Similarly, in D&D your typical man of the cloth is a spell-casting, sword-wielding, warrior of god, while your typical priest in Fighting Fantasy is a simple man who preaches the glory of his god, but who possess no magical or martial abilities of note, instead being characterized only by his faith and verbal experession of that faith. System matters. It always will. I hypothesize that if one were to take a single adventure module that makes no inherent system assumptions (I'll be using Thieves in the Forest) and runs it under different systems, the resulting adventures will be vastly different both in tone and scope, as well as actual outcome. This hypothesis forms the core of The Grand Experiment. I am going to take that one fairly generic adventure module, and run it under six different systems as follow: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Basic Roleplaying (Magic World) </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Castles & Crusades (First Printing) </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dungeons & Dragons (1976 Holmes Basic) </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Advanced Fighting Fantasy </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ars Magica (5th Edition) </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Fantasy Trip</li> </ul>Both the same group of players and same module shall be used throughout in addition to adhering to a standardized play schedule. The only thing that will change is the system. I plan on documenting each run through the adventure, detailing specific instances of interest where the actual play diverges from previous runs through the adventure. This is The Grand Experiment. So what does it prove? Well, I'd like to say that it proves system matters. Or maybe that regardless of whether or not you travel the same road as somebody else, the mode of transportation that you utilize may effect your final destination. Honestly, though - it doesn't prove a thing. The Grand Experiment is about experiencing - not about proving. It's about the journey, not the destination. So, with that, I'm off to do a little bit of prep for my coming journey into the many different facets of tabletop gaming. When I get back, I'll tell you about the trip <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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