Setting vs. System : which games are really about their setting... not their system?

[tenbones]

So it struck me seeing the Brigandyne thread... when people say "Warhammer clone" what *exactly* are they cloning? What is the DNA that makes a game a clone - and is it really the tone of a setting? Or the system that allegedly underpins it?

Another interesting corollary - is how many settings do you feel would work better with other systems and why?

 

[Gringnr]

I started a similar thread (similar to the second part of your post anyway) a while back, but I can't be bothered to look it up.

I'm sure someone, somewhere has a good definition of retro-clone. I'm not sure I know.

I suppose the mechanics are sufficient to qualify. Labyrinth Lord is a retro-clone, but I'm not sure it has its own inherent "setting" as such. Same with OSRIC.

A game like Shadow of the Demon Lord is heavily inspired by Warhammer, but mechanically takes some cues from D&D. I've never heard anyone call SOTDL a retro-clone of Warhammer.

 

[Séadna]

So it struck me seeing the Brigandyne thread... when people say "Warhammer clone" what *exactly* are they cloning? What is the DNA that makes a game a clone - and is it really the tone of a setting? Or the system that allegedly underpins it?

I would say if the rules are close enough and if the implied setting is of the same subgenre then you're in "clone" territory. Of course that still leaves plenty of leeway and many would restrict a clone to reasonably exact reproduction.

Another interesting corollary - is how many settings do you feel would work better with other systems and why?

World of Darkness would work better with a lighter system first. Secondly the game would probably have to decide between the "Anne Rice vampires" versus "katana vampires" aspect at the rules level and for the former use something more narrative like PbtA.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

Clockwork and Chivalry. BRP is fine and does the job, but it's the setting that makes the game and you could port it to most other mid crunch systems without it changing how the game feels.

 

[The Butcher]

Talislanta and Tékumel are two that jump out to me.

Tékumel in particular has been attached to several different systems and none feels quite “right” for the sort of game I’d run with it.

Talislanta has a system that’s even been used for other games (Omni?) but nothing about it grabs me (on paper — never ran or played).

This thread got me thinking, though. Some games have an identity that rests firmly on both setting and system — WFRP springs to mind; I wouldn’t dream of running the system with anything but the Old World, or of running the Old World with anything but WFRP (I will consider Zweihänder and edition of WFRP for the purposes of this sentence).

Now consider Runequest. I only really jumped on the bandwagon when Glorantha was no longer featured front and center, and I’m not even a Glorantha hater — I’d gladly play — but making it into a toolbox opened my eyes to the system’s potential. And Glorantha itself spent quite a few years being published only for a radically different system. Funny how that works out.

I have a similar impression regarding Traveller and the OTU (though I like the OTU much better than Glorantha).

 

[The Mad Hatter]

World of Darkness would work better with a lighter system first. Secondly the game would probably have to decide between the "Anne Rice vampires" versus "katana vampires" aspect at the rules level and for the former use something more narrative like PbtA.

There actually is a PbtA vampire game. It's called Undying and would in fact do Anne Rice/Political scheming vampires very well. For the other style I would just use Cinematic Unisystem.

For me Exalted never really fit with the Storyteller system. When I discovered Wild Talents, an ORE system superhero game, I immediately thought Exalted would be a good fit there. I actually started converting Exalted to it, but I probably did the mistake of wanting to convert the charms. I did actually convert all the charms from the corebook. But I also wanted to convert the Dragon-Blooded, Lunars and Sidereals, but never got it done.

 

[AsenRG]

So it struck me seeing the Brigandyne thread... when people say "Warhammer clone" what *exactly* are they cloning? What is the DNA that makes a game a clone - and is it really the tone of a setting? Or the system that allegedly underpins it?

Another interesting corollary - is how many settings do you feel would work better with other systems and why?

Exalted?

 

[TheophilusCarter]

I agree that WoD could be lighter for a lot of the playstyles it seems to aim for. Especially the Chronicles of Darkness core book for mortals campaigns. Some of it's great, but some of it seems overly fussy.

 

[tenbones]

Exalted?

so ideally what system would you use for it? And why does the WoD system which for Exalted sucks, manage to keep it's fanbase? Or has it evaporated?

 

[tenbones]

I started a similar thread (similar to the second part of your post anyway) a while back, but I can't be bothered to look it up.

I'm sure someone, somewhere has a good definition of retro-clone. I'm not sure I know.

I suppose the mechanics are sufficient to qualify. Labyrinth Lord is a retro-clone, but I'm not sure it has its own inherent "setting" as such. Same with OSRIC.

But this is one of my problems with "D&D"... outside of its core settings... the implied "setting" of the core rules is all over the map. More now so than ever. Experienced GM's approach it differently than less-experienced GM's, and through it all, WotC markets the game via it's adventure books with little exposition on "what D&D" is. I.E. they don't really care *as much* for their settings (for a variety of scaling economic reasons I'm sure).

Is Labyrinth Lord merely a vehicle for a system?

A game like Shadow of the Demon Lord is heavily inspired by Warhammer, but mechanically takes some cues from D&D. I've never heard anyone call SOTDL a retro-clone of Warhammer.

Same question? Is it a setting designed as a vehicle for a system? Or the reverse? Or both?

 

[robertsconley]

So it struck me seeing the Brigandyne thread... when people say "Warhammer clone" what *exactly* are they cloning? What is the DNA that makes a game a clone - and is it really the tone of a setting? Or the system that allegedly underpins it?

It goes back to what setting takes the least amount of work to run with the system. Or what kind of setting the various lists describe. If this is the RPG in question then it looks like the author is desribing a similar type of setting that Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay supported. I can't tell what the nauces are but undoubtly the author focuses on certain things differently than Warhammer but it recognizably the same subgenre.

So if Brigandyne mechanics uses things like d100 rolls, careers, and other similar mechanical elements then it likely near clone both in terms of system and implied setting.

While subjective it does boil down to how much work it takes to do the following

Learn the system having known Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st or 2nd edition.
Reuse setting material from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st or 2nd edition. For example if i just swap out the stat blocks how simiar Shadows over Bogenhafen plays out?

 

[K_Peterson]

Another interesting corollary - is how many settings do you feel would work better with other systems and why?

Blue Planet, without a doubt, is all about the setting. It's an amazing setting. Maybe one of the best Scifi Rpg settings I've ever seen.

It was released under 2 proprietary game systems and was a supplement for Gurps 3E. I haven't looked at the GURPS supplement in some time, but the previous systems were either overly-complex or bland and broken. I don't really know what would be the best system to work with Blue Planet but there's gotta be a better fit, IMO.

 

[Gringnr]

But this is one of my problems with "D&D"... outside of its core settings... the implied "setting" of the core rules is all over the map. More now so than ever. Experienced GM's approach it differently than less-experienced GM's, and through it all, WotC markets the game via it's adventure books with little exposition on "what D&D" is. I.E. they don't really care *as much* for their settings (for a variety of scaling economic reasons I'm sure).

Is Labyrinth Lord merely a vehicle for a system?



Same question? Is it a setting designed as a vehicle for a system? Or the reverse? Or both?

Labyrinth Lord is a vehicle for a system IMO. SoTDL has a deep setting. I wouldn't say the mechanics are a vehicle for the setting, because the mechanics are a deliberate design choice that is neither WFRP or D&D.

 

[tenbones]

Talislanta and Tékumel are two that jump out to me.

Tékumel in particular has been attached to several different systems and none feels quite “right” for the sort of game I’d run with it.

Talislanta has a system that’s even been used for other games (Omni?) but nothing about it grabs me (on paper — never ran or played).

Oh tell me about it. For all my love of Talislanta, I'm more in love with the system itself. I've said for literal decades that the 2e or 3e edition of Talislanta would have made for a far better chassis for D&D's established settings. But it never caught on. Conversion is *easy*... it's one of those tribal mysteries of System eclipsing the assumptions of a Setting. Where people assume D&D as a system IS the setting. For players I get this - they don't get into the taco of design, as much as they're into their characters and system-mastery to express those characters. They have little need to look elsewhere for those mechanical expressions.

GM's on the other hand... have to be the ones that lead this charge and sell it. Most don't wanna bother.

This thread got me thinking, though. Some games have an identity that rests firmly on both setting and system — WFRP springs to mind; I wouldn’t dream of running the system with anything but the Old World, or of running the Old World with anything but WFRP (I will consider Zweihänder and edition of WFRP for the purposes of this sentence).

Now consider Runequest. I only really jumped on the bandwagon when Glorantha was no longer featured front and center, and I’m not even a Glorantha hater — I’d gladly play — but making it into a toolbox opened my eyes to the system’s potential. And Glorantha itself spent quite a few years being published only for a radically different system. Funny how that works out.

I have a similar impression regarding Traveller and the OTU (though I like the OTU much better than Glorantha).

Yes! this exactly the kernel of the question. I'm a complete Warhammer noob. I've avoided the setting since the 80's... mainly because I was Nerdzerking elsewhere. But I've always been aware of it. Keenly at that. Now it's become a grotesque hole in my "gaming resume" as a GM. Because I've come to *LOVE* the setting. But that system... I'm still dancing around it. I can't help coming to WHFRP with literal decades of experience in dozens of other game-systems looking at that system and saying "I can run this fluff with my own conceptions of that fluff in a more streamlined way." If I didn't have the GMing saddle-time I have, there is no way I'd reasonably approach Warhammer this way. Which is itself another facet of the thread...

Because how many times have we as players sat at a table with a GM that had their own personal favorite system they wanted to apply to *everything* even when it was a misfit from the jump?

Glorantha, Warhammer, Traveller - all good examples of settings with very specific systems that represent those settings. In fact I'm not sure that most players and fans differentiate the setting from the system. But the question is: could you? And if so - with what and why?

 

[tenbones]

There actually is a PbtA vampire game. It's called Undying and would in fact do Anne Rice/Political scheming vampires very well. For the other style I would just use Cinematic Unisystem.

For me Exalted never really fit with the Storyteller system. When I discovered Wild Talents, an ORE system superhero game, I immediately thought Exalted would be a good fit there. I actually started converting Exalted to it, but I probably did the mistake of wanting to convert the charms. I did actually convert all the charms from the corebook. But I also wanted to convert the Dragon-Blooded, Lunars and Sidereals, but never got it done.

One of my low-priority desires was to dive into Exalted fluff and do the whole thing in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (FASERIP).

 

[robertsconley]

Same question? Is it a setting designed as a vehicle for a system? Or the reverse? Or both?

Both again it boils down to how much work it takes to do X. But since all RPGs focus on adjudicating the actions of characters interacting with a setting the concept of tabletop RPG system is a swiss army knife. If wanted to run a science fiction setting with D&D I would have my work cut out for me compared to running a fantasy setting.

Even within fantasy setting with D&D one has to keep an eye out on what an edition means by level and other mechanic elements. If it turns out that a 5th level character actually is 5 times more powerful than a 1st level character and 20th level character is 20x the power then you going to have to limit the level spread if you want to run a more grounded campaign. Or use options or switch to an edition that reduces the disparity between levels.

It may turn out that the result isn't mechanically interesting to the group as amount of mechanical detail and how it is presented is an important part of the enjoyment of a system and a campaign.

But this is one of my problems with "D&D"... outside of its core settings... the implied "setting" of the core rules is all over the map. More now so than ever.

You and I debated this in the past. My point still stand that D&D has no worse problem with this than any other system provided you understand how it abstracts. I know you are a fan of Savage Worlds but even that system doesn't just work out of the box for everything possible setting. Which is why Savage Worlds enjoys a wealth of supplements that adapts to various settings and genres.

It helps that the authors of Savage Worlds deliberatly designed their system to facilatate this. While the authors of various editions of D&D do not.

This demostrated by my favorite example Adventures in Middle Earth. In AiME the authors took the time to come up with new lists for various D&D 5e element in an successful attempt as creating a Middle Earth RPG based on 5e. It no more work for a referee or player to learn AiME than it is for them to read up on the latest options in Xanathar, or Sword Coast.

Nor it is hard for a Savage World referee or players to use one of the setting sourcebook released for SW.

 

[urbwar]

so ideally what system would you use for it? And why does the WoD system which for Exalted sucks, manage to keep it's fanbase? Or has it evaporated?

They're actually working on a lighter rules version of Exalted. I haven't followed too closely but it sounds like it will be much easier to run (GM'ing Exalted is something I've heard requires a lot of work on the GM's part)

I wouldn't say the WoD system sucks; I ran a V:TM game for a few years, and didn't find the system to be that bad. It has issues for sure, but I don't think it sucked. It worked fine for what I was running though

 

[Baragei]

Despite my innate distrust of dice pools, I find that I still like the core of the ST-system. It has however suffered a lot under ..less gifted designers since its conception.

 

[Lundgren]

Despite my innate distrust of dice pools, I find that I still like the core of the ST-system. It has however suffered a lot under ..less gifted designers since its conception.

Besides the point I don't distrust dice-pools, this is pretty much my opinion about various implementation of the ST-system. I also think there is an interpretation of Exalted where at least the second edition mechanics works quite well with. However, the second edition hade no writers oversight and bad designers; so it's pretty much like ordering a statue, but receives a bunch of broken ones. Still, with some tools and some superglue, you might actually put a quite decent one together.

Really mismatched games would be MERP (Role-Master light for Middle Earth?), Leading Edge's Dracula (Phoenix Command light slapped on a Dracula license), and first edition of Kult (the designers never played it themselves with any mechanics, but slapped a system they had for another game on it, because the wisdom of the time was that you had to have mechanics in a game to sell it).

 

[Voros]

I agree that WoD could be lighter for a lot of the playstyles it seems to aim for. Especially the Chronicles of Darkness core book for mortals campaigns. Some of it's great, but some of it seems overly fussy.

V5 has a one roll combat option that seems to make sense to me.

 

[Voros]

One of my low-priority desires was to dive into Exalted fluff and do the whole thing in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (FASERIP).

Exalted fluff gives me a headache, as does most WoD fluff actually.

 

[AsenRG]

so ideally what system would you use for it?

Any system which covers fighting, social, mystical and organizational ability and allows you a gradual progression (it's very much part of the canon and fanon, especially for Solars) with Ultimate Abilities...but, importantly, there's no one-way-to-rule-them-all character build!
Any recommendations? Because I can't think of any system that would do that without active Referee control.

And why does the WoD system which for Exalted sucks, manage to keep it's fanbase? Or has it evaporated?

It's not evaporated AFAICT.
As to "why"...there are various reasons.
1. Some people are simply reluctant to change, especially if it involves learning new rules. Now combine that with WoD being a very popular game, especially at some points, and you get...
2. Some people genuinely can't be bothered to care what the system is doing, as long as their actions have roughly predictable/expected outcomes. For those, the actual system is...well, as good as any other, so why bother to change it? If the world only consisted of such people...actually, the White Wolf system would have been fine! Problem is, I've only known a few of those that weren't also "casual beyond Casuality Incarnate". A casual player+Exalted...I want to see that just for the laughs, provided I'm not running it!
OK, I jest, a casual player simply would play a more but a group consisting of casual players would be extremely hard to get to even play Exalted...or Greek heroes, or swaschbucklers, or xia (since they usually try to minimize the drama, not play a character with "Third-Circle-Demons-may-care-do-what-you-believe-to-be-right" attitude)!
3. Some people believe that the above requirements are possible on the WoD chassi without turning the game into a logistical nightmare. I'd believe it when I see it. Until then? Exalted is a great setting and I might even use the system with only minor houserules...if I'm running Heroic Mortals.
4. Some want to play it "as the authors intended" or something...though I have no idea which authors they have in mind, given the multiple changes (some of which were made even during the same edition, I think).

Also, Tekumel, Glorantha, Blue Planet were mentioned already.

 

[The Butcher]

Oh tell me about it. For all my love of Talislanta, I'm more in love with the system itself. I've said for literal decades that the 2e or 3e edition of Talislanta would have made for a far better chassis for D&D's established settings. But it never caught on. Conversion is *easy*... it's one of those tribal mysteries of System eclipsing the assumptions of a Setting. Where people assume D&D as a system IS the setting. For players I get this - they don't get into the taco of design, as much as they're into their characters and system-mastery to express those characters. They have little need to look elsewhere for those mechanical expressions.

GM's on the other hand... have to be the ones that lead this charge and sell it. Most don't wanna bother.

Interesting. Omni, for me, exists in a similar headspace as Unisystem — a ruleset that seems sane, serviceable, but doesn’t really grab me by the collar and scream “PLAY MEEE” like my favorites.

Yes! this exactly the kernel of the question. I'm a complete Warhammer noob. I've avoided the setting since the 80's... mainly because I was Nerdzerking elsewhere. But I've always been aware of it. Keenly at that. Now it's become a grotesque hole in my "gaming resume" as a GM. Because I've come to *LOVE* the setting. But that system... I'm still dancing around it. I can't help coming to WHFRP with literal decades of experience in dozens of other game-systems looking at that system and saying "I can run this fluff with my own conceptions of that fluff in a more streamlined way." If I didn't have the GMing saddle-time I have, there is no way I'd reasonably approach Warhammer this way. Which is itself another facet of the thread...

Because how many times have we as players sat at a table with a GM that had their own personal favorite system they wanted to apply to *everything* even when it was a misfit from the jump?

Glorantha, Warhammer, Traveller - all good examples of settings with very specific systems that represent those settings. In fact I'm not sure that most players and fans differentiate the setting from the system. But the question is: could you? And if so - with what and why?

As a fan of WFRP I’d encourage you to pick up and look into WFRP2, which is probably the easier version to learn and run. But as a fellow gamer, I say go ahead with the Omni conversion!

Glorantha gave rise to Heroquest, and the idea of running Traveller with FATE lies at the origin of Diaspora, for example. The viewpoint I expressed in the quoted post is merely my personal opinion, not a truism; let a thousand flowers bloom and all that.

 

[Simlasa]

I've never been all that much of a 'system matters' adherent. There are systems I like/prefer... but I think I generally disassociate system from setting most of the time. Like, I'm seldom convinced one is a perfect/necessary component of the other. Traveller came to me without the OTU so I never assumed that setting, Runequest came with only a little bit of Glorantha (which I mostly ignored anyway).

The D&D settings I like (Ravenloft and various OSR creations) usually don't seem ideally served by D&D. It's just the popular-making option.

Earthdawn might be an exception... though its system is, for me, too many good ideas in one bowl (combat is sloooooooow).
Cadwallon is maybe another, with its 'Attitudes' and how the magic works... but I doubt its need for the miniatures/map combat tries to require.

Kult's system didn't bother me... but its presentation (loads of gun porn) seemed off, same as I felt about cyberpunk games of that era... and the Vampire stuff IIRC.

 

[Lundgren]

And why does the WoD system which for Exalted sucks, manage to keep it's fanbase? Or has it evaporated?

Last time I looked at the forums over at Onyx Path Publishing, the Exalted part seemed to be thriving. My problem with Exalted isn't so much the system but most of it's fanbase that posts over there and at TBP.

From my point of view, I can't think of a system that would work better from how I want to run it. However, I'm a tinkerer so that it needs a bit of modding don't face me. I'm also not from the "balanced encounter", "everyone should be able to contribute to a fight", or "interesting challenges" schools that some D&D players expects. Those clashes quite hard with what the system can provide. So besides the poor implementation design, there is quite a bad expectation management problem. The system can be tweaked to support gamestyle Z quite well, but a lot expects X or Y from it.

 

[Nick J]

I suppose I've seen plenty of implied settings in the RPGs I've owned/read over the years (various flavor of D&D for instance), but because I tend to gravitate towards generic (or at least generalized) systems over games with tightly wedded systems/settings it's never been much of a concern to me to. In fact I perversely enjoy taking a setting designed with one system in mind (aka Dolmenwood for B/X) and adapting its conceits and conventions for something else (BRP/Magic World in this case) partly because I like to tinker, but mostly because I usually find that the settings I'm most intrigued by are written for systems I don't particularly enjoy.

The systems I have owned/own that tightly integrate setting with system (RuneQuest:Glorantha in particular) never really feel that satisfying, because I always get the sense that the designers are confining my choices about how to play it/run it; like a set of Jenga blocks that feel like they'll come tumbling down if I remove just one thing.

 

[The Mad Hatter]

One of my low-priority desires was to dive into Exalted fluff and do the whole thing in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (FASERIP).

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is one of my gaming blind spots, because I'm not a Marvel fan.

My gripes about Exalted was really only, that the dice pools became way too big. ORE would solve that real nice.
I have run a very good 1st Edition Dragon-Blooded campaign with the Storyteller system though.

 

[Raleel]

a few points in no particular order

Exalted would work well with Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (Cortex Plus). In fact, there is a hack out there for it. I find the ST system to be largely to granular, believe it or not, for this sort of work.

I hope to be proven wrong, but I'm not super keen on Mythras and other finely detailed games for superheroes. You have to step back a bit on them. Light d100 systems, maybe. I think the range and the continuity of scale is a big issue in this particular space. Sort of the Daredevil vs Galactus problem.

My example of game not matching the system is a very very classic one - Shadowrun. I think it kind of comes down to SR being sort of two different games - one is this societal business with equality and all that, and the other is running magi-techno heists. I also think that the dice pool is just too fine grained for the system.

Despite me not wanting to run it because holy shit is it heavyweight on some points for the GM (screw the players!), fate of the norns: ragnarok is pretty pitch perfect for what it aims to do. I have considered running other games with it (a warhammer 40k one comes to mind), but I doubt I would extend it too far (even though the celtic version is coming out)

 

[Simlasa]

I hope to be proven wrong, but I'm not super keen on Mythras and other finely detailed games for superheroes. You have to step back a bit on them. Light d100 systems, maybe. I think the range and the continuity of scale is a big issue in this particular space. Sort of the Daredevil vs Galactus problem.

I think Daredevil vs. Galactus will always look stupid unless you have full authorial control... meaning you are writing the comic so that things happen the way you want them to. No leeway for it to get out of hand, nothing else can happen. I'm sure there have been D&D games where a lvl1 fighter killed Thor... but I'm happy not to have been playing in those games.

As for 'implied settings'... a lot of D&D GM's I've played with seem to want EVERYTHING on the table. Meaning that there will be full-on Tolkienesque races even if they are a bad/distracting fit... all spells will be available no matter the setting. It reminds me of buffets here in Vegas where, in an attempt to get your money's worth, you end up with plates full of a beige melange of disparate food... hot dogs and salmon and chow mein.

 

[Nick J]

Hot dogs and chow mein . . . at first I was all , then I was like . . .

 

[tenbones]

Interesting. Omni, for me, exists in a similar headspace as Unisystem — a ruleset that seems sane, serviceable, but doesn’t really grab me by the collar and scream “PLAY MEEE” like my favorites.

Well honestly... a system *rarely* does that for me. I think I should clarify this point a bit more. A standalone system has to jump out at me as "doing something" that strikes me as being a good emulation of a genre.

Marvel Heroic Roleplay - completely allows me to quickly and efficiently capture nearly every aspect of Supers-gameplay that I want. But it has the added design dynamics that after putting it through its paces for years, to also scream PLAY MEEE with other other genres and settings it wasn't specifically built for.

Savage Worlds is *exactly* this to me as well. As a system, I'm like... whatever. It's a system. But in actual application I can (and have) used it to emulate a style of play for a setting or genre with great efficiency. It helps that it was designed for this. If you're a GM that doesn't want a lot of control - or more specifically you want your game to explicitly tell you what to do all the time, I could see it not be attractive.

OMNI/Omega System (and any other variant) - is pretty basic. The point is finding that genre/setting that creates that emergent PLAY MEEE quality!

As a fan of WFRP I’d encourage you to pick up and look into WFRP2, which is probably the easier version to learn and run. But as a fellow gamer, I say go ahead with the Omni conversion!

I actually own it! I recently picked up a copy, and yep, the system feels chunky and clunky to me on read-through. It's a product of its age. But that fluff! That glorious fluff is rocking! Now I'm not saying the system sucks - I'm merely saying that as product of its time, I totally get what they're going for. And I understand the spinoff systems clearly it was influenced by and in turn has influenced (I see a lot of Runequest in here).

The question I ask myself more and more these days is "Are these mechanics getting in the way of the setting and its conceits, and *being* the actual game? Or are there other systems that can do all of "this stuff" and let the setting breathe on its own under the horsepower of my players and my GMing skill with more efficiency?

Glorantha gave rise to Heroquest, and the idea of running Traveller with FATE lies at the origin of Diaspora, for example. The viewpoint I expressed in the quoted post is merely my personal opinion, not a truism; let a thousand flowers bloom and all that.

I'm with you 100%. Every GM has to approach this in their own unique way. And more importantly we have to be willing to put down our assumptions on systems we haven't run, and give these games their own shot natively, ideally, if only for the experience of figuring out what works/doesn't work for you and your crew.

 

[tenbones]

Last time I looked at the forums over at Onyx Path Publishing, the Exalted part seemed to be thriving. My problem with Exalted isn't so much the system but most of it's fanbase that posts over there and at TBP.

From my point of view, I can't think of a system that would work better from how I want to run it. However, I'm a tinkerer so that it needs a bit of modding don't face me. I'm also not from the "balanced encounter", "everyone should be able to contribute to a fight", or "interesting challenges" schools that some D&D players expects. Those clashes quite hard with what the system can provide. So besides the poor implementation design, there is quite a bad expectation management problem. The system can be tweaked to support gamestyle Z quite well, but a lot expects X or Y from it.

Yeah the emergence of "balanced encounters" is a *bane* on the hobby. It undercuts a lot of the power of sandbox gaming that I prefer.

 

[TristramEvans]

I think Daredevil vs. Galactus will always look stupid

 

[TJS]

Symbaroum is really all about the setting (and the art).

 

[Gringnr]

View attachment 17579

This was part of Marvel's "Assistant Editors' Month", an odd thing they did in, I think, 1983. There wasn't a particular rhyme or reason. A handful of titles had odd, unusual, or just plain silly content. Some had lots, others a little. The Avengers went on David Letterman (in the comic). It was great. They tried it again a few years back, in the form of a couple of "special issues", which I haven't seen.

 

[TristramEvans]

This was part of Marvel's "Assistant Editors' Month", an odd thing they did in, I think, 1983.

yep, good times. I think the Fantastic Four Roast came out around the same time.

 

[Trippy]

All the original World of Darkness games appealed for their setting designs rather than their system. The latest Vampire 5th is the first edition of the classical lines that somebody has really sat down and thought about creating a really tight set of mechanics in my view. I could add a bunch of 1990s games that are similar in sloppy mechanics, but interesting settings.

In other cases, it’s not so much that the system is weak, as much as the system is not as much as a priority as the setting is. I’d say that examples of this could a lot of games based of BRP - where the system is a convenient ‘language’ to use, rather than anything particularly original or setting specific.

 

[TJS]

SLA Industries was another one we were always talking about converting to some other system back in the day.

Dark Sun too.
Most of the later 2E settings really.

 

[Nerag]

Not sure if its quite in the category but I'd say the Battletech RPG Mechwarrior. Its more about supporting the giant stompy robot setting than the rules (well the RPG rules), but I always thought you could do more with the setting.

Its got politics, a neofeudal setting, cybernetics, power armour... lots of options.

In one campaign we went aggressively barhopping on a backwater planet and the GM threw a few ideas at us before we realised there isn't much written on the setting other than about the military and the giant stompy robots and there really could be.

 

[TristramEvans]

BattleTech has one of my favourite settings of all time in science fiction (prior to the Clans returning). You could have a campaign of Dune-level epic proportions without even setting foot in a Mech. I found the RPG a bit lackluster, though. The first edition was OK, but it's suffered from serious rules bloat ever since, to the point the newest edition is practically unplayable IMO.