Universal systems and the use thereof

[Rob Lang]

[Onix]

I agree that a unique system can do a lot for a game and even if it's not unique, I'd never fault somebody for creating their own. But even if a designer read the rules and said "I'd like something like that in my game" then I'm cool with that.

Really my interest in this is inspiration. Inspiring someone to write a game because they can just plain steal the hit points chapter or the "What is a Role Playing Game" boilerplate so they didn't have to type it out. Even if they used the rules to start playtesting their game and then wanted to change one thing (or all of it) they didn't have to worry about a license and infringing on the original writer's copyright.

I actually would rarely expect someone to use the system as is like you would have to with Gurps. I would expect people to steal the text describing the mechanic and then alter it to fit their game. Maybe that's the real idea here? Blocks of descriptive text that designers can use and alter to paste into their game?

I'm progressing on my mental image of this meta system I think i've got some of the modules planned out in my head.

[Chris Johnstone]

Hi everyone,

There's a lot of really interesting ideas and thoughts and discussion here.

I think a few people have hit the proverbial nail with a few comments. Systems do best when they merge as seamlessly into a setting, and generic systems seldom do this well.

Robb, you're right that I feel hesitant about putting together my own system. I don't think this is because I dislike writing out systems (I actually quite like that part of game building). It's more that I'm a bit worried that I'm not very good at it. More than once I've trotted out a system to be play-tested and found that it was broken beyond repair. I sort of feel I ought to have a better intuitive sense for whether or not a mechanic will work.

At the moment, I'm thinking that I'll probably keep ticking along with a setting-specific system for Spellwoven, but will try to keep it open enough so that another couple settings that I'd like to write up (and which have been gathering dust for years) could also be slipped into the Spellwoven system. All of the settings I'm thinking about are fantasy, so that makes things a bit easier.

I will post some more stuff shortly. Things are a bit less busy than they used to be, though only a bit...

Chris

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

[tygertyger]

[cjoki]

I have played many systems and two that pop out right off are GURPS of course and Paladium, in their Rifts setting. Rifts did not last long in my gaming group. Although everyone loved the setting the mechanics where a wreck were they took the standard paladium rules and "tried" to add a layer on top to explain how much damage a cyborg will do to a normal person with a punch, when the cyborg is able to punch through a wall. The result was something called mega-damage and it was just terrible.

GURPS, was a system my group played with for quite a while before eventually returning to DND. I do like a lot of what SJ games did but I disagree with the limited stats they use and as I have heard SJ wanted to only have 3 stats if he could have only made it work. The 4 stats that they do use are far to limiting and very prone to min/max - ing by players...of course what system isn't?

My Red Ash World Engine is my a atempt at the universal rules system. It is designed around the idea that all creatures whether playable or not must use the same creation rules to describe their physical and mental abilities and optionally any powers they may have. The entire system is meant to be modular so you can take or leave parts of the system, (mainly powers, skills and classes) depending on the world you are intent on designing. This system is changing as I move forward with new additions and something comes along that the system can not handle in an effective manor. Such as when I went to add the Kraken to the defined species, I realized that my size scaling just would not do the beasty justice. The Kraken of legend was stated to be the size of an island and my system only went to a max of 50 feet in length. So I made a decision to redesign the size and I am in the middle of adjusting creatures and scripts.

So why do I go through all the trouble of designing this system of mine?

Because I wanted a solid base to build games from. Over my long history of gaming I have always felt disatisified with most of the systems for one reason or another. In fact my gaming group also took issues with the systems we played and would have house rules to enforce some "balance" into what we were playing.