RPG Thoughts: Genre As Window Dressing?

Right now I have a couple of playtests happening as I work on a robust role-playing game system—a game that is complex, with many pre-defined components that is more about player choice than player creativity when it comes to character creation. There are two key design challenges I am facing—synchronizing all the parts of the system, and getting a “roll-low” to fit mechanically.

But that isn’t material. What is material is that I am running a pre-industrial fantasy and a cyberpunk game using the same rules. Other than gear, everything else is basically the same. And the gear is not extensive, nor does it have a super-significant impact on the mechanics.

Since I started modding systems—hacking or homebrewing published RPGs—I’ve been a proponent of ‘system matters.’ Yes, a good GM can make a system do something it is not designed to do, paper over the cracks, and make the game enjoyable . . . but wouldn’t it be better if the GM didn’t have to do that? If, instead, the game did what you wanted it to do RAW—rules as written? That’s what I mean by system matters.

But I’m now wondering if this applies is genre. Or perhaps I should use the term setting, as I would argue that D&D is its own genre now. One could shift D&D that into different settings—from prehistoric societies to starfaring ones—and it can still deliver the D&D experience. D&D is its genre.

My design philosophy has always been to create a goal, kind of a mission statement for the game. For Sword Noir, that was replicating the feel of hardboiled detective fiction in a sword& sorcery environment. The setting was implicit in that—sword & sorcery. For Nefertiti Overdrive, I wanted a quick and simple system that incentivized vivid descriptions and provided players with expansive narrative control. See, even though Nefertiti Overdrive was designed for an Ancient Egyptian setting, that wasn’t part of the design goal. The genre was—high octane action—but not the setting.

My goal for this current system—no name right now—is really just a challenge for me: make a robust system that works. What is the genre? Not sure. What is the setting? Doesn’t have one.

But it’s working. It’s working in that it is functional. I can’t say if it is delivering the desired experience, because that is not part of the design goal. I don’t have a specific kind of experience I am trying to deliver with the system. I can say that it is delivering a functional RPG experience and that the players claim to be enjoying the game.

So how important to the system is the genre? Possibly not at all. At least in this case. I think that may be a function of robust vs. simple systems. Robust systems are kind of a genre of their own—like D&D or GURPS—that can be ported from setting to setting because the experience they are expected to delivered is a layered structure that rewards system mastery.

Simple systems, because they are simple, maybe need that target genre to hold them together. Sword Noir could be adapted to do other work (Sword’s Edge is actually a derivation of the original Sword Noir, as is Kiss My Axe), and they are very similar in their task adjudication system, but they are not the same. All three games have minor differences that allow them—I would argue—to deliver a different game experience.

All this to argue that system does matter, but that genre is not necessarily part of that system, especially for robust systems. I don’t think Sword Noir would be the best system for a game inspired by the heroic bloodshed genre of Hong Kong action cinema. Sword Noir is a pretty simple game. Could I do both a game of social conflict on the advent of industrialization and a heroic bloodshed game with D&D or Champions or GURPS? I think so, but I think they’d deliver a different experience than a simple game built for those specific genres.

I think complex games scratch a particular itch, and generally have a wider application than simple games designed for a specific task, but I think a game designed for a specific experience will deliver that experience better. It boils down to what the player enjoys—the complexity of a robust game, or the focus of a simple game.

Now, back to work tweaking this evolving robust system.