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Author Topic: The Great Kingdom - Rise and Fall of Gary Gygax  (Read 5307 times)

Omega

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The Great Kingdom - Rise and Fall of Gary Gygax
« Reply #45 on: August 06, 2014, 12:07:35 AM »
Quote from: Matt;776399
And my biggest beef with the new games I see is how companies just seem to try to cram any setting into the same mechanics whether they are genre-apppropriate or not. MWP is one that I don't care for with its  compulsion to recycle its "Cortex" system over and over. I like it when the mechanics are built around the setting, as in Pendragon. That seems ideal to me. Is it a lost art? Everyone lately seems to want to recycle D&D mechanics.


Different design philosophies.

Some look at a system and see endless possibilities. Others dont.

But what some forget is that each retool needs its own additional little mechanics to cover specifics sometimes.

Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, and Boot Hill are all compatible with D&D. But each has its  own unique twists.

A core system is a REALLY strong marketing tool too. If its cross compatible then players are more likely to gove it a try since they dont need to learn a totally new system every time. We learned that one early on.

Matt

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The Great Kingdom - Rise and Fall of Gary Gygax
« Reply #46 on: August 06, 2014, 12:22:58 AM »
Quote from: Omega;776454
If its cross compatible then players are more likely to gove it a try since they dont need to learn a totally new system every time. We learned that one early on.


Not sure I believe that without evidence. Board games seem to have no trouble getting players to learn new rules for different games. Unless RPGers are very different in their willingness to learn. Could be wrong.

Omega

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The Great Kingdom - Rise and Fall of Gary Gygax
« Reply #47 on: August 06, 2014, 11:35:11 AM »
Quote from: Matt;776460
Not sure I believe that without evidence. Board games seem to have no trouble getting players to learn new rules for different games. Unless RPGers are very different in their willingness to learn. Could be wrong.


Short of some wargames, RPGs tend to be exponentially more complex in rules than most board games. Most commercial board games have rulebooks that are sometimes one to four pages in length.

and some wargames use the same, or very simmilar system or format from one to the next. SPI is the posterchild for that. Every one of their games that I have has the same general format, layout and even sometimes mechanics.

That familliarity helps for complex games and SPI games tended to be that as example.

Its a discussion that pops up with publishers and designers every few years and the end result is allways the same. Some prefer a core system and build from there. Some have incompatible systems for every product.