What Rules/Systems Would You Steal For EVERY Game?

[Piperken]

...What I mean is, what rules or subsystsems do you find so compelling, useful and/or fun, you think some version of them should exist in most games to make them better?...

I don't think it's been mentioned yet? But apologies if it has. The Die of Fate (tm).

When there's an aspect to a situation that's unknown, roll a d6 (or flip a coin). If 4 or above, it's something favorable to the party; if 3 or less, it's something that negatively impacts the party.

 

[TheSword]

I’d carry the conditions system from WFRP 4e.

Instead of conditions being binary, they can escalate. Grappled, blinded, deafened, fatigued, frightened etc could all have varying degrees of affect.

Your vision could be partially obscured by blood from a cut or you could permanently lose their vision. All games would benefit from a degree of granularity in this regard.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think it's been mentioned yet? But apologies if it has. The Die of Fate (tm).

When there's an aspect to a situation that's unknown, roll a d6 (or flip a coin). If 4 or above, it's something favorable to the party; if 3 or less, it's something that negatively impacts the party.

Another Burning Wheel-ism! (At least the label. I think the technique probably goes back to the dawn of RPGing.)

Mythic Bastionland makes good use of this across a range of sub-systems.

 

[aramis erak]

Rather than discussing a certain topic, what I am interested in here is what rules or subsystems do you, personally, think should be in "every" game. Obviously, let's not be too literal. What I mean is, what rules or subsystsems do you find so compelling, useful and/or fun, you think some version of them should exist in most games to make them better?

The only one I find mechanically universally useful is the Reaction Roll for NPCs... as an option. I prefer the Traveller flavor over the D&D one, tho' they're fairly close.

I prefer every system to have some mechanical option for changing those reactions, and I prefer every game to have a tree of labeled difficulties and the mechanical mods with those, even it, as in PBTA, it's just Auto-success, roll, or auto-fail. (and PBTA is clear GM declared failure should be only because success makes no plausible sense in the narrative... such as throwing oneself at the ground and missing....

 

[aramis erak]

Surprisingly for many, the 'old school' idea that the GM controls the world and the PCs just control their character is controversial.

It's been a lie more often than not since the 1970's...
Players don't control what their character does, only what their character attempts. The GM (and the rules) control what the PC actually does... ideally it's directly related to the attempt and the result of any consulted randomness source.

I know a lot of players understand their roll much better when I describe their roll as "You get to declare what your character attempts. If it makes sense, I'll pick a difficulty, and tell you if you need to roll. If it's absurd or implausible, that difficulty may be too high for a roll to matter." And if the player is a novice gamer, or is new to a strongly bespoke setting with lots of unusual lore, I'll add, "And if you pick something your character would know is a problem, I'll tell you and let you walk it back." I do that even with experienced gamers in L5R and Pendragon, and with non-Trekkies in Star Trek.... It's not a prohibition, either - it's a "are you aware this is a faux pas?" and I've occasionally had them say, "Yes, and I'm doing it on purpose."

One procedural that I got from Burning Wheel: If it's not stupidly clear what the intended outcome is from the method, ask what the goal is... saves a lot of "But that's not what I expected!" whinging. I don't consider it a rule to be imported, but just good gamemastering.

At least for games where combat is going to be a thing, I think encounter building/balancing guidelines have become a must. Unfortunately, many of them are done poorly. But in theory it is a good idea to give GMs a tool to at least eyeball what is mechanically an appropriate encounter for a given level of difficulty or intended feel.

I like them, but most work poorly. I'll note that I found 5E-14's to be one of the few that worked fine for me... but so many don't grasp the annoyingly just slightly too complicated math... and the terminological issues with it...

Twilight Sword's, so far, seems to work passably...

 

[Thraic Ogmund]

Another one that I would consider is the backgrounds system from 13th Age, wherein players are given a number of points to divide between whatever they can dream up. For example, you could do three points in "scholar" and two points in "rodeo clown." This would give you a +3 on checks where your background as a scholar would be useful, and a +2 on checks to distract bulls so that folks don't get gored to death. Such a simple, elegant way of handling skills.

 

[Tigris]

Another one that I would consider is the backgrounds system from 13th Age, wherein players are given a number of points to divide between whatever they can dream up. For example, you could do three points in "scholar" and two points in "rodeo clown." This would give you a +3 on checks where your background as a scholar would be useful, and a +2 on checks to distract bulls so that folks don't get gored to death. Such a simple, elegant way of handling skills.

I like this system as well. I just in general prefer a bit simpler version where you dont distribute X points as you want but rather just have 2 "backgrounds" a big (like +4) and a small one (+2). Just having a bit less granularity to simplify even more.

 

[Reynard]

Another one that I would consider is the backgrounds system from 13th Age, wherein players are given a number of points to divide between whatever they can dream up. For example, you could do three points in "scholar" and two points in "rodeo clown." This would give you a +3 on checks where your background as a scholar would be useful, and a +2 on checks to distract bulls so that folks don't get gored to death. Such a simple, elegant way of handling skills.

This is very similar to Experiences in Daggerheart -- which i also treat something like Aspects from Fate. that is, you power them with metacurrency, but even so they are still Always True.

 

[Agamon]

Every game I run now is going to replace whatever it uses for background with a pbta-style playbook, with leading questions based on the archetype choice to both integrate the PC into the setting and set up problems and threats to start the game.

 

[MGibster]

So, what rules or subsystems do you think belong in nearly every RPG, and why?

The conspyriamid chart from Night's Black Agents. In a nut shell, it's just an organizational chart, but it's a great tool for a GM to keep track of how various organizations and/or orgnaizations fit into overall power structure of the bad guys. The PCs will typically encounter the lower rungs of the chart and work their way up as the campaign progresses.

Advantage/Disadvantage from 5th edition is something I've introduced to other games. Not necessarily a straight up mechanical translation of course, rolling twice in some systems doesn't work as well as it does in D&D, but more in how I make sure to give mechanical advantages to players on rolls when they do something particularly clever by setting up conditions that would make them more successful.

From 5th edition again, Vampire this time, I got into the habit of not making players roll for anything that wasn't important or there wasn't a chance of failure. For example, in a Call of Cthulhu game the player characters were breaking into an isolated, abandoned farmhouse in rural America. There was no chance of discovery, it was just a regular door, and I couldn't think of any logical reason the PCs wouldn't eventually get in, so I didn't have them roll. But let's say there was a strange, shambling horror bearing down on them from the nearby cornfield. Suddenly getting into the house as quickly as possible is important, so I'd have the PCs make some rolls to batter down the door quickly.