Your thoughts on Generic versus Bespoke systems.

[Neonchameleon]

I defined my terms in context of the thread.

You defined it as:

Note that by "generic" here I don't necessarily mean "universal." In this context, D&D is "generic" because it (ostensibly) allows for a broad range of high fantasy games. Blades in the Dark, on the other hand, falls into the category I am referring to as "bespoke" because it focuses on a very specific style of play with setting assumptions built into the game mechanics.​

I'm saying the opposite is true - and Blades in the Dark allows for a far wider range of games while D&D focuses on a style of play that in practice has far more setting assumptions built into the game mechanics.

 

[Reynard]

You defined it as:

Note that by "generic" here I don't necessarily mean "universal." In this context, D&D is "generic" because it (ostensibly) allows for a broad range of high fantasy games. Blades in the Dark, on the other hand, falls into the category I am referring to as "bespoke" because it focuses on a very specific style of play with setting assumptions built into the game mechanics.​

I'm saying the opposite is true - and Blades in the Dark allows for a far wider range of games while D&D focuses on a style of play that in practice has far more setting assumptions built into the game mechanics.

I think you are wrong and missing the point. I would go so far as to say that defining BitD as "generic" makes little sense. The game is designed from the ground up to do a SPECIFIC thing. You can read lots about is from the designers.

 

[Aldarc]

I think you are wrong and missing the point. I would go so far as to say that defining BitD as "generic" makes little sense. The game is designed from the ground up to do a SPECIFIC thing. You can read lots about is from the designers.

Neonchameleon is hardly the first person in this thread to think that you're wrong for labeling D&D as a "generic" game, regardless of how you chose to define your terms.

 

[Ulfgeir]

Neonchameleon is hardly the first person in this thread to think that you're wrong for labeling D&D as a "generic" game, regardless of how you chose to define your terms.

Maybe a better term would be "standard" or "vanilla" game. Or "bland"

 

[Aldarc]

Whereas something like Blades In The Dark is built around a single world, and, without a lot of homebrew (for new playbooks), just single interpretation of that world--playing as criminals doing crime.

These BitD supplements from the BitD website may interest you.

 

[pemerton]

Maybe a better term would be "standard" or "vanilla" game. Or "bland"

It's witty - but D&D actually isn't particularly bland, nor vanilla. It's offers a pretty definite experience, I think.

I don’t really think of D&D as a generic system because it only addresses part of the “high fantasy” milieu. If you want to do non-party play, it doesn’t do much to support you when PCs come into conflict. In fact, PvP is usually something no one wants in their D&D game.

Agreed. For me, D&D is fairly bespoke - or actually a range of bespoke systems.

If I want to play classic White Plume Mountain, well Gygax's AD&D or B/X is good for that. If I want to play what I see as "the story of D&D" - heroes who fight against a multiversal threat of chaos/evil starting with kobolds et al and ending up with Orcus, I'll play 4e. (And that's a long-term investment of time!)

The most generic RPG I think I've played is Cortex+ Heroic - I've used it for MHRP, a Viking-themed fantasy game, and LotR. Which are fairly different things.

 

[pemerton]

It's generic in the sense that there's no setting attached to it, and there's a very broad interpretation of it's genre--after all, this is a game that supports the Realms, Greyhawk, Planescape, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Eberron, Birthright, and so on, plus a countless number of homebrew worlds.

Whereas something like Blades In The Dark is built around a single world, and, without a lot of homebrew (for new playbooks), just single interpretation of that world--playing as criminals doing crime.

Writing some new playbooks doesn't seem very different from stuff that is essential to what you posit as D&D's genericness - writing bucketloads of setting material, new races, new classes, new monsters, new magic items, new rules sub-systems, etc.

 

[Reynard]

Neonchameleon is hardly the first person in this thread to think that you're wrong for labeling D&D as a "generic" game, regardless of how you chose to define your terms.

True, but others disagree. Maybe this thread isn't actually about debating whether any given person thinks D&D is "generic".

 

[Reynard]

Maybe we can talk about the actual subject instead of descending into a semantic debate where everyone is just trying to score points against their opposition?

 

[Campbell]

Here's the thing. We (the tabletop community) often makes the case that a game like Mutants and Masterminds is less specific and more generic than something like Masks, but I don't think there's much in actual play to back up that people are effectively using games like Mutants and Masterminds to explore the same sorts of conceptual space that games like Mask operate within. It might be theoretically the case that one might explore teenage superheroes finding their sense of identity in a more 'generic' game, but a culture of play focused on group problem solving makes the chance you will encounter that sort of play in the wild basically nil.

Does what you can theoretically do in a game if everyone is perfectly on task matter if the rate of it happening is statistically irrelevant? Especially if it tends to get shut down by the play culture and peer pressure?