Your thoughts on Generic versus Bespoke systems.

[Neonchameleon]

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.

I am not saying Blades in the Dark is not specific. I am saying it is less specific than D&D. I explained why in the thread. "D&D, with its very specific decisions on combat, magic, and how power levels are measured, and what it lacks"

Defining BitD as generic makes little sense - but it makes no sense at all to define D&D as generic. Even 5e is designed from the ground up to do one specific thing - be D&D.

I then compared it to Fate - which is absolutely more generic than either. I could bring in GURPS but with about six separate magic systems and at least two and I think three injury systems I could argue that GURPS is more toolkit than game.

And as mentioned good bespoke always beats generic if it hits the target.

 

[Staffan]

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.

Vanilla is actually a pretty specific and amazing flavor. It's just that it's so ubiquitous that it's seen as a background against which other flavors contrast.

Which one could argue makes it a perfect analogue for D&D.

 

[Faolyn]

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.

If there are rules/guidelines to making playbooks, I haven't found them yet. The playbooks are usually more thematic to the game as a whole than D&D archetypes and classes are, to the point of containing specific motivations and relationships between PCs or the PC and the world at large that aren't specified in most D&D things, except perhaps backgrounds. So to me, creating a playbook is a bit more involved because it also involves a lot of worldbuilding. At least if you're going to take a system/setting like Blades in the Dark and change it so that the entire game is based around stuff other than crime. It's probably a lot easier to create a playbook that fits into the setting, though.

 

[Neonchameleon]

If there are rules/guidelines to making playbooks, I haven't found them yet. The playbooks are usually more thematic to the game as a whole than D&D archetypes and classes are, to the point of containing specific motivations and relationships between PCs or the PC and the world at large that aren't specified in most D&D things, except perhaps backgrounds. So to me, creating a playbook is a bit more involved because it also involves a lot of worldbuilding. At least if you're going to take a system/setting like Blades in the Dark and change it so that the entire game is based around stuff other than crime. It's probably a lot easier to create a playbook that fits into the setting, though.

This sounds as if you're getting Blades playbooks confused with Apocalypse World playbooks. And while I agree that Apocalypse World playbooks are more art than science Blades ones are pretty easy and mostly almost identical. All you need are:

• A playbook name
• A list of half a dozen playbook special abilities to pick from. This is the only even vaguely challenging part.
• Five random pieces of playbook equipment that might come into play
• Five random NPCs (each being just a name and a couple of words of description so "Marcellus, an Apothecary" or "Jack, an urchin")
• Which skill to give a starting two dots to and which to give one
• The "playbook behaviour" for end of session XP

The setting can be dumped in a heartbeat - and to not base the system round crime you need to just drop the flashback system and change the crew sheets for what the game is to be based round (probably dropping the turf system in the process).

 

[billd91]

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?

I wouldn't make that assumption. Having GMed both, and having read and played with M&M's Heroes High materials through multiple editions, there's quite a bit of exploring teenage identities, relationships with the adult hero and mundane worlds, and other teenage topics in M&M teen hero campaigns. The chance that a Claremont Academy (or other teen hero) campaign in M&M explores identity isn't even close to nil in the wild.

 

[pemerton]

I've just been looking at, and making a post or two in, this thread:

How to deal with a "true roleplayer".

I have this friend. I'm willing to bet a lot of you have a friend like this. He is convinced that "making a good character" consists of the following steps: *Give the character a detailed backstory. *Give the character unoptimized ability scores, justifying them with said backstory. *Have the...

www.enworld.org

And for me it reinforces some ways in which D&D is "bespoke", in the sense of tailored to support and produce certain fairly definite play experiences.

The "bespoke" system I've been playing most recently is Torchbearer. And Torchbearer would have no trouble adjudicating an attempt to lure a giant into an ambush in the woods: it's a Trickery contest.

The "generic" system I mentioned upthread, MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, would also have no trouble. Depending on the details, that would either be Mental stress to the giant, or the imposition of a complication.

The features of the resolution framework that produced the outcome described by @James Gasik - a chase resolved by comparison of static speed scores; the way hiding is resolved; the way combat is resolved, with its extreme level disparities - are all artefacts of the D&D mechanics. They're not generic elements of fantasy story telling - which in both book and film often involves exactly the sort of hijinks this player attempted - and is not a generic element of FRPGing.

 

[MGibster]

When it comes to RPGs, how do you feel about "generic" rulesets that intend to allow for broad application, versus bespoke systems that focus on narrow ranges of themes, style and/or genre?

For a lot of different settings of pulp/action movie style adventure, I'll use Savage Worlds. It's great for a wide range of games, but doesn't scratch the itch when I want to run Call of Cthlhu, Aliens, or Vampire. I'm more likely to purchase a game that focuses on a narrow range of themes, style, and/or genre because how many generic games do I really need?

 

[Reynard]

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?

If you can choose to run a game with a very specific and defined theme and style, or the same game in a different specific theme and style,it is by definition a generic game for the purposes of this thread.

 

[James Gasik]

I've just been looking at, and making a post or two in, this thread:

How to deal with a "true roleplayer".

I have this friend. I'm willing to bet a lot of you have a friend like this. He is convinced that "making a good character" consists of the following steps: *Give the character a detailed backstory. *Give the character unoptimized ability scores, justifying them with said backstory. *Have the...

www.enworld.org

And for me it reinforces some ways in which D&D is "bespoke", in the sense of tailored to support and produce certain fairly definite play experiences.

The "bespoke" system I've been playing most recently is Torchbearer. And Torchbearer would have no trouble adjudicating an attempt to lure a giant into an ambush in the woods: it's a Trickery contest.

The "generic" system I mentioned upthread, MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, would also have no trouble. Depending on the details, that would either be Mental stress to the giant, or the imposition of a complication.

The features of the resolution framework that produced the outcome described by @James Gasik - a chase resolved by comparison of static speed scores; the way hiding is resolved; the way combat is resolved, with its extreme level disparities - are all artefacts of the D&D mechanics. They're not generic elements of fantasy story telling - which in both book and film often involves exactly the sort of hijinks this player attempted - and is not a generic element of FRPGing.

It's true though. Watch a movie and see people outrun enemies, dodge traps, find cover at the last minute...and then imagine trying to resolve it with a game like D&D. Say for example, the climactic truck scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

That's something you would want a bespoke cinematic system for.

 

[Tonguez]

My favourite system is FATE Accelerated and before 3e I mainly enjoyed GURPS, so I’m definite on the generic/universal end of things. That said I do like BitD and Pendragon for what they do as bespoke games too. Currently looking at Ironsworn which also looks good.

FATE and GURPs and PbtA as engines that allow for custom builds on a generic chassis is probably the style I like, rather than truely bespoke games.

I like Worldbuilding so being able to do that system agnostic works for me.