Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
When the Game Mechanics and Game Fiction Don't Match
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 9281124" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>I play RPGs for the fiction they represent. If the mechanics do not make that fiction possible, then the designers screwed their game up and it's not worth playing.</p><p></p><p>So for example... in my opinion, a large part of the fiction of playing a <em>Star Trek</em> RPG is in each character having their own station on the bridge that they themselves are the master of, and when the starship goes exploring or gets into combat, each character has specific things they need to be doing to see those actions result in a successful mission. For a Trek game to succeed in my opinion... the mechanics have to give every station on the bridge a lot of meaningful things to do when that PC's turn comes up. If the game cannot supply that... then to me it's a failure of design and the game is much less worth playing. If the starship fights a Klingon Bird of Prey and the Ship's Doctor is now going to spend the next 30 minutes sitting on their hands because the game doesn't give mechanics on what the Ship's Doctor should be doing during that combat... then someone screwed up. The designers of a <em>Star Trek </em>RPG <strong>have</strong> to know that starship combat is an important part of playing in the fiction of <em>Star Trek</em>, and if they don't take all the different "jobs" of <em>Star Trek</em> characters into account when making their design of their game... then the game has failed.</p><p></p><p>This was the problem with a lot of the d20 conversions that occurred in the OGL heyday... the d20 system just did not have enough design mechanics to be able to accurately represent lots of different types and genres of game or the various character types that were a part of those different types and genres of game. And thus those games really weren't worth playing. "Generic" game system always tend to fall short in my opinion except for the two or three types of game the generic system was built for. In most other cases... give me a mechanical system specifically built for the genre and game in question. I'll take a game with meticulously designed Heist rules to play an RPG about doing heists over a game that says "Well, you <em>can</em> run heist games with this system with some changes and additions..." any day of the week.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 9281124, member: 7006"] I play RPGs for the fiction they represent. If the mechanics do not make that fiction possible, then the designers screwed their game up and it's not worth playing. So for example... in my opinion, a large part of the fiction of playing a [I]Star Trek[/I] RPG is in each character having their own station on the bridge that they themselves are the master of, and when the starship goes exploring or gets into combat, each character has specific things they need to be doing to see those actions result in a successful mission. For a Trek game to succeed in my opinion... the mechanics have to give every station on the bridge a lot of meaningful things to do when that PC's turn comes up. If the game cannot supply that... then to me it's a failure of design and the game is much less worth playing. If the starship fights a Klingon Bird of Prey and the Ship's Doctor is now going to spend the next 30 minutes sitting on their hands because the game doesn't give mechanics on what the Ship's Doctor should be doing during that combat... then someone screwed up. The designers of a [I]Star Trek [/I]RPG [B]have[/B] to know that starship combat is an important part of playing in the fiction of [I]Star Trek[/I], and if they don't take all the different "jobs" of [I]Star Trek[/I] characters into account when making their design of their game... then the game has failed. This was the problem with a lot of the d20 conversions that occurred in the OGL heyday... the d20 system just did not have enough design mechanics to be able to accurately represent lots of different types and genres of game or the various character types that were a part of those different types and genres of game. And thus those games really weren't worth playing. "Generic" game system always tend to fall short in my opinion except for the two or three types of game the generic system was built for. In most other cases... give me a mechanical system specifically built for the genre and game in question. I'll take a game with meticulously designed Heist rules to play an RPG about doing heists over a game that says "Well, you [I]can[/I] run heist games with this system with some changes and additions..." any day of the week. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
When the Game Mechanics and Game Fiction Don't Match
Top