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pasko77
2008-06-15, 06:40 AM
EDIT: in the following, BG = Background. Sorry.

I'd like to share a little insight about this concept.
I saw a lot of people complaining about the "ancient civilization" behind Tieflings in 4th edition, and about how rules should not interfere with BG.

I found a lot of cases in which this is not only impossible, but also wrong.
I'll take for instance Exalted.
In the game, it is supposed that particular places are rich in energy, and staying or even only having your own building in these places gives you energy. THIS IS A RULE.
Consequently, temples are built on these locations, and are heavily defended by the armies of local nobles who benefit from them. THIS IS BG.

Everybody can see that the rule IMPLIES the BG fact, in a consistent world logic (or everybody is so dumb to leave these places unattended?).

The same goes for the Clerical powers. If you don't have a God of Trickery (BACKGROUND), you can't have a bonus in stealth for their clerics (RULE). You can give stealth bonus to people, but because they're nimble, or they are rogues, or because... but not as a clerical advantage, which instead is the case in 3.5.

Don't even get me started about Disposability of teleport (RULE) -> changes in market and society (BG).

Discuss! :)

SurlySeraph
2008-06-15, 06:49 AM
Please define the word "BG," citizen.

Justyn
2008-06-15, 06:54 AM
Please define the word "BG," citizen.

I took it as, based on context, "background". But I agree that it is a bad idea to use a contraction (wrong word, I know, but the actual word escapes me at the moment) without ever once defining it.

pasko77
2008-06-15, 06:57 AM
Please define the word "BG," citizen.

BG is any detail of the world you tell in the story. The fact that "Someplace Else" is a republic, the fact that the Tiefling had had an evil empire in the past, the fact that there is a God of trickery.

Most DMs refuse to bend to these "limitation". I read many times "i don't want to include the ancient evil tiefling civilization (with remaining ruins) in my setting".

Ok, maybe the word "Setting" is more fitting than "Background". Forgive my english.

EDIT: or maybe you meant that i did not bother to say BG = BackGround... ehm... sorry. :)
I changed the title.

Nemoricus
2008-06-15, 07:31 AM
The same goes for the Clerical powers. If you don't have a God of Trickery (BACKGROUND), you can't have a bonus in stealth for their clerics (RULE). You can give stealth bonus to people, but because they're nimble, or they are rogues, or because... but not as a clerical advantage, which instead is the case in 3.5.

Not quite. 3.5 rules were clear that you could devote yourself to a philosophy. I'd rule that this could include a Trickery domain if the cleric in question was devoted to such a philosophy.

Not all clerics devote themselves to a god.

PHB 30


Some clerics devote themselves not to a god but to a cause or source of divine power. These characters wield magic the way clerics devoted to individual gods do...

PHB 32


If your cleric is not devoted to a particular deity, you still select two domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities.

However, your point on rules and setting still holds. These rules imply that something gives those clerics their power that's separate from the deities.

Nebo_
2008-06-15, 08:40 AM
This is ridiculous. I separate setting and rules all the time. You just mentioned one rule that ties in with a setting, then went on to state fallaciously that you must have a god of trickery to give clerics a bonus to stealth. Stating instances of such an occurrence is useless; unless this is true every time, you argument does not hold water.

pasko77
2008-06-15, 08:44 AM
This is ridiculous. I separate setting and rules all the time. You just mentioned one rule that ties in with a setting, then went on to state fallaciously that you must have a god of trickery to give clerics a bonus to stealth. Stating instances of such an occurrence is useless; unless this is true every time, you argument does not hold water.

Don't think too strictly to this example.
Think about how a rule (eg. teleport is EASY vs. teleport is rare) influences setting (in this sub-example the market and transport system). I think this cannot be underestimated, if you want to build a consistent world.

If you say: "antigravity is easy", it comes almost immediate that the capital is floating in the air or something. In a ruleset where "no antigravity", no flying cities, and so on.
And this holds for EVERY rule, i think. Hell, even saying "there are humans", "these are the races allowed" are rules, which influence setting.

Nebo_
2008-06-15, 08:52 AM
Don't think too strictly to this example.
Think about how a rule (eg. teleport is EASY vs. teleport is rare) influences setting (in this sub-example the market and transport system). I think this cannot be underestimated, if you want to build a consistent world.

If you say: "antigravity is easy", it comes almost immediate that the capital is floating in the air or something. In a ruleset where "no antigravity", no flying cities, and so on.
And this holds for EVERY rule, i think. Hell, even saying "there are humans", "these are the races allowed" are rules, which influence setting.

You're confusing "Rules influence setting" with "Rules cannot be separated from setting"

pasko77
2008-06-15, 09:00 AM
You're confusing "Rules influence setting" with "Rules cannot be separated from setting"

Uhmmm. yes. :)
What is the difference? :)

My statement, more formally, is:

Since rules extremely influence setting, you cannot have a vanilla setting which can be run in every ruleset.
Therefore the need to write rules and setting together.

In the first example, Exalted, this is particularly true, since the whole politics revolves around the control of power sites. You can't take your custom world and say "we play exalted on this map with these NPCs". It simply doesn't work.

There are cases in which both the setting AND the rules are generic enough to be switched with other games, like D&D and Lord of Rings, i suppose. But it's only because they are similar.

Guildorn Tanaleth
2008-06-15, 09:02 AM
On the matter of your original complaint, what part of the rules for tieflings implies that they must have had an evil empire?

EDIT: I'm an orc! FINALLY.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-06-15, 09:04 AM
Sure you can. Plenty, plenty of evidence. BESM, D&D, GURPS, M&M, Ex Machina, Rolemaster d20 Modern, RuneQuest (3rd ed. dropped almos all references to Glorantha from the basic rules, instead referring to a vague "fantasy Ancient Earth" in the in-game examples, but providing no setting at all; Mongoose's version even lacks really Glorantha-specific spellcasting systems in the basic rules).

That, incidentally, covers a large part of the most popular game systems...

Separating genre and rules / mechanics is also fine; games like that work just swell. But genre-specific systems are almost universally superior in modeling that genre. The courage and magic of Decipher's The Lord of the Rings RPG are superior to Rolemaster's mechanics for representing the style of Tolkien's novels (even though Rolemaster was developed from MERP; but then again, MERP was never any good for Tolkien's Middle Earth anyway); the honor and dueling systems of Legend of Five Rings are superior to most other games you might use to model Rokugan's Japanese-Chinese feudal feel.

Your specific examples are exceptionally bad. There are plenty of games with lists of advantages that you can attribute to various in-game causes - maybe they're granted by deities, or by special bloodlines, or just about anything else. Mutants & Masterminds is an excellent example - the mechanics exist completely independently of any background. Compare to Aberrant, which is a very setting-tied system, where superpowers are derived from a specific source (some sub-atomic quantum BS).


In a well-designed game, rules reinforce the setting (in LOTR, you get mechanical advantages for RPing your character good, noble, and heroic); in a slightly less well-designed game, rules can come to dominate the setting (see D&D 3.5 all over).


I'm not sure how the tieflings' default background has anything to do with anything. I can give them any sort of background; maybe they're throwbacks born to humans (like in 3rd ed. Faerūn), or maybe they're a true-breeding race, or maybe they're creatures that spawn spontaneously from rifts in the fabric or the world where infernal energy concentrates on the "other side". None of it makes a difference to the mechanics. I don't even have to call them tieflings - I can call them Demonlings, or the Za'n Gara, or Hell-elves (a breed of fey evolved to live in Hell).

pasko77
2008-06-15, 09:12 AM
On the matter of your original complaint, what part of the rules for tieflings implies that they must have had an evil empire?

They're emo:smalltongue:

First point: i'm not complaining about anything. t is just a little thought i had and i want to share, and discuss about. I'm perfectly happy with people making their own world, and i'm just too lazy to do the same.
I simply notice that most of the worlds are similar, because they are based on similar rules.

Second point: nothing says the tiefling need to have had an empire. Nothing at all. If they had a rule on "remorse" or something, it would hold. For what i know, the part about the empire can be deleted. The tiefling bit was just the start of the reasoning, which evolved since i'm re-reading the rules of Exalted and found the analogy.

pasko77
2008-06-15, 09:25 AM
Sure you can. Plenty, plenty of evidence. BESM, D&D, GURPS, M&M, Ex Machina, Rolemaster d20 Modern, RuneQuest (3rd ed. dropped almos all references to Glorantha from the basic rules, instead referring to a vague "fantasy Ancient Earth" in the in-game examples, but providing no setting at all; Mongoose's version even lacks really Glorantha-specific spellcasting systems in the basic rules).

That, incidentally, covers a large part of the most popular game systems...

Separating genre and rules / mechanics is also fine; games like that work just swell. But genre-specific systems are almost universally superior in modeling that genre. The courage and magic of Decipher's The Lord of the Rings RPG are superior to Rolemaster's mechanics for representing the style of Tolkien's novels (even though Rolemaster was developed from MERP; but then again, MERP was never any good for Tolkien's Middle Earth anyway); the honor and dueling systems of Legend of Five Rings are superior to most other games you might use to model Rokugan's Japanese-Chinese feudal feel.

Your specific examples are exceptionally bad. There are plenty of games with lists of advantages that you can attribute to various in-game causes - maybe they're granted by deities, or by special bloodlines, or just about anything else. Mutants & Masterminds is an excellent example - the mechanics exist completely independently of any background. Compare to Aberrant, which is a very setting-tied system, where superpowers are derived from a specific source (some sub-atomic quantum BS).

In a well-designed game, rules reinforce the setting (in LOTR, you get mechanical advantages for RPing your character good, noble, and heroic); in a slightly less well-designed game, rules can come to dominate the setting (see D&D 3.5 all over).



I don't know all the games you cite. Anyway i understand that it is "possible" to write generic ruleset ("swords hurt people", "you need to eat and sleep sometimes"... that's obvious), but you explicitly admit that rulesets built around the setting simply work better. You almost seem to agree with me while saying the opposite.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-06-15, 09:53 AM
I don't know all the games you cite. Anyway i understand that it is "possible" to write generic ruleset ("swords hurt people", "you need to eat and sleep sometimes"... that's obvious), but you explicitly admit that rulesets built around the setting simply work better. You almost seem to agree with me while saying the opposite.

Yeah, "almost." What you posted is still completely incorrect. Even though you're coming from a position of ignorance about game systems that exist, your core assertion is logically incorrect. The selling-point and core design concept of many systems is, in fact, that they are not setting-specific (GURPS, D&D, BESM, Ex Machina, Rolemaster...).

"You cannot separate setting and rules" is clearly and hugely incorrect.

"Genre-specific rules are better for playing in that genre" is pretty inarguable. (Although whether any one genre-specific system beats any one general system at representing any one genre or setting is a matter of taste. If somebody thinks GURPS beats Cyberpunk 2020 at representing cyberpunk, that's largely a matter of taste.)

Note, also, that setting and genre are not remotely the same thing. M&M is full of genre-specific mechanics, but absolutely nothing setting-specific; this makes it superior to setting-specific systems, because you can use the same ruleset for anything setting (and you can use it to craft setting-specific rules).

So it's not only "possible", but it's a common core concept for games. Many of these games work out great - lots of people would rather learn one system and use that for a lot of games. I and others prefer learning a lot of simple systems to play very specific genres.



Anyway i understand that it is "possible" to write generic ruleset ("swords hurt people", "you need to eat and sleep sometimes"... that's obvious)

Your example is pretty silly. Look at GURPS; the rules go far beyond "swords hurt people" and "you need to sleep" - but they can be used to play time-travel, hard SF, space opera, high fantasy (well, that one a bit badly), sword & sorcery, cyberpunk, modern, horror... and the same goes, more or less, for all other games I've mentioned.

Similarly, Mongoose's RuneQuest has combat, crafting, skill, disease, and magic mechanics that aren't tied to any setting, and never reference one, except in the separate setting-specific books. (Indeed, to actually fit the core book's spellcasting mechanic to the default setting's existing fluff, you have to change it heavily...) Here we do see the difference between generic and specific, though - the generic Rune Magic doesn't feel traditionally Gloranthan, but the Glorantha-specific Dragon Magic is incredibly appropriate to the setting.

Cainen
2008-06-15, 09:54 AM
There are different degrees of what you're saying. D&D's core setting is minorly tied to its mechanics, and does indeed show up in most settings, but it's not as hard as you'd think to remove it from its setting. Now, in Shadowrun or basically any White Wolf game, this is NOT the case.

Indon
2008-06-15, 10:13 AM
I would not only disagree, but I would further posit that one can compare how separable setting and rules are in any given system versus others.

For instance, I would say that Exalted has a strong setting-rules association, meaning it would be hard indeed to separate them. Many rules are built around the specific setting. Still, it's by no means impossible.

In contrast, we have generic systems such as GURPS, which have weak setting-rules association, meaning it's easy to separate them. Rules are built around being dynamic/modular, rather than to provide realism to a specific setting.

I don't think either is inherently better than the other - they're just better at telling different kinds of stories.

pasko77
2008-06-15, 10:15 AM
[QUOTE=Tsotha-lanti;4463130]Yeah, "almost." What you posted is still completely incorrect. QUOTE]
Eh :) thanks :)

I know gurps. It is huge and it is so generic that it does not address anything. It needs a "splatbook" for everything.
Don't get me wrong. I like Gurps Conan and i'm among the people who think that Gurps Cyb is better than Cyb itself.

But you understand that these are ADDITIONAL rules. If you still think this is one only ruleset, fine with me. It is just a matter of definition. In its whole, GURPS is far to big a system to be defined as a "single ruleset", imho.

Runequest cannot address a super-hero or sci-fi setting (or genre, if you prefer), so my initial statement still holds.
D20, in my opinion, fails utterly in the attempt, but the discussion on single systems would be tiresome.

I played a lot of games that claim to be "generic", maybe not the same that you have tried, so i don't recognize the names. The result is that i found them slightly unsatisfying, and that's why. The loose connection with the gameworld makes them less realistic (except gurps, but i already said about gurps).

ANYWAY, i don't think we'll agree on this. Let me propose you about the opposite exercise:

you are quoting rulesets which are adaptable to settings, and not the opposite, which is even harder. You can tune a system to allow or prohibit a particular options, but with settings?

I mean "power sites" in exalted... wheter they are there or they are not. You can't put a scenario with "insert generic holy site" here and there, or it would be like having nothing. Don't you agree at least on this?

1of3
2008-06-15, 10:45 AM
No discussion required. Read The Pool (http://www.randomordercreations.com/rpg.htm).

Unlike Gurps it does not require another book, because the rules don't care about the fiction, but the way fiction is created.

The_Werebear
2008-06-15, 10:46 AM
I think I get what you are saying. I'll paraphrase quickly to make sure I have it.


The rules of a particular system are generally built around that system's fluff. Separating the two often results in inconsistencies in the fluff and crunch

I would find this to be generally true, but on different scales. For example, it's hard to use DnD to model a modern or futuristic world, even with a heavy refluff. However, you can model almost any particular fantasy world with it. The same rules that work for Eberron work for Faerun, even if some of how that is applied is different.

Likewise, it would be hard to get the Serenity RPG system to model high fantasy. But my friends and I have refluffed it into a Star Wars system that actually works pretty well.

So, it's more about Genre than particular setting, though I see how that could apply from your example. If you switched to a game with no power sources, why would you need a random point so heavily fortified?

pasko77
2008-06-15, 10:57 AM
WereBear: Yes, perfect!
And i like the theorem, too! :)

1of3: thanks, nice. We call it a "cooperative game" and not strictly a "RPG".
I don't remember neither the exact definition nor the formal differences.
I once invented a diceless game that was quite similar to this.

GolemsVoice
2008-06-15, 10:58 AM
I don't think your claim is true, just think of, for example, D20 WoW. In the new edition, which I own, they decided to reprint the basic D&D rules together with the special WoW-Stuff, so you no longer need the PHB. And, well, apart from the classes, and a few spells, guess what, everything is exactly the same. The rules, almost all weapons, spellcasting, AoO, you name it. Although there are new domains, like Spirits or Ancestors, which are tied in with the specific background, the domain system is still unchanged. So while I would agree that you cannot for example use Mystra's Magical Mungo, a spell that conjures a Magical Mungo with Mystra's symbol on it, in a setting where there is no specific god of magic (which would be background), you still could use the spell Magical Mungo, which conjures forth a Magical Mungo, without symbols.

pasko77
2008-06-15, 11:05 AM
I don't think your claim is true, just think of, for example, D20 WoW. In the new edition, which I own, they decided to reprint the basic D&D rules together with the special WoW-Stuff, so you no longer need the PHB. And, well, apart from the classes, and a few spells, guess what, everything is exactly the same. The rules, almost all weapons, spellcasting, AoO, you name it. Although there are new domains, like Spirits or Ancestors, which are tied in with the specific background, the domain system is still unchanged. So while I would agree that you cannot for example use Mystra's Magical Mungo, a spell that conjures a Magical Mungo with Mystra's symbol on it, in a setting where there is no specific god of magic (which would be background), you still could use the spell Magical Mungo, which conjures forth a Magical Mungo, without symbols.

Well but Dnd and WoW are basically the same "generic tolkenian fantasy setting".
There are elves, orcs and whatnot. It is not a big deal, to change some domain and names.

Think for instance to Dark Sun. The setting is hot :smallcool: but after applying basic rules on clerical magic, the idea was screwed. They had to CHANGE THE RULES and remove every spell of creation/planeshift, introduce defiling magic and other things that i don't remembrer.

ShneekeyTheLost
2008-06-15, 11:40 AM
In brief: The mere existance of rules systems like GURPS invalidates your argument.

Using the Core Rules, I could create the following:

1) A swashbuckling scallywag in a historically accurate victorian era adventure

2) A Space Marine set in a high-tech futuristic setting

3) A powerful wizard, learned in the various ways of how Magic works

4) A mutant from Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Students

5) A Ninja, schooled in four different forms of martial arts, able to sneak in unseen, assassinate a specific individual, and leave, without leaving a trace until they find the body in the morning.

6) A victi- er, I mean Main Character from any Lovcraft novel

To give some iconic figures which I *HAVE* written up in GURPS:

1) Spider Man

2) Jean Grey (pre-pheonix)

3) Inu Yasha

4) Naruto

5) Captain Jack Sparrow

6) River Tam

7) A 'Dog Pack', complete with Mind Melter (from RIFTS)

8) Elemenster

9) Drizzt (I was young, what can I say?)

10) Honor Harrington (complete with Nimitz).

Since all these are in *drastically* different settings, I would have to say that rules can indeed be seperated from settings.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-06-15, 11:48 AM
I mean "power sites" in exalted... wheter they are there or they are not. You can't put a scenario with "insert generic holy site" here and there, or it would be like having nothing. Don't you agree at least on this?

I don't even understand what that means. Please clarify?

If I take Decipher's Coda system, I can use the rules for "places of evil" (Weariness tests are harder and recovering Weariness is harder, etc.) and "places of good" (the opposite is true) to represent churches, ley line effects, stone circles, or just about anything else, instead of Lands of Shadow and Domains of the Wise.

Better yet, some games will provide lists of

RuneQuest works for any fantasy genre, of which there are plenty; it can certainly be adapted to superhero or scifi without much of a hassle (BRP is already used for both modern and fantasy games, and the difference between modern and SF is mechanically pretty slim); indeed, high-level RuneQuest games are remiscent of nothing if not superhero games, with characters (called, in fact, SuperHeroes) like Harrek the Berserk and Sheng Seleris tearing through entire armies, reflecting an enemy priest regiment's magic back on them and melting them all, or leaping up to the sky and gouging out huge pieces of the Moon.

Your original statement, "You cannot separate Setting and rules", is still incorrect.

If you're now altering your stance to correspond to what I posted and revising your statement to be less absolute ("genre" or "over-genre" instead of "setting", etc.), hey, that's great. At least you'll be right. But don't pretend that's what you were saying all along.

Thinker
2008-06-15, 12:12 PM
I can almost totally refluff Exalted, should I want to go into a lot of detail. Admittedly a few rule-changes would need to take place, but in general the rules are the same. A game system and a game rule-set are different things.

Exalted to Mortal Kombat:
(These are a few ideas I've had, but I haven't really done anything with them)

Remove the Great Curse (which was pretty much entirely fluff to begin with)
Solars become Gods
Dragon-Blooded become Heroic Mortals (Humans & Edenians, Chaos Realmers, Order Realmers, etc.)
Sidreals become Sorcerors
Abyssals become Vampires
Dragonkings become various (Centaurians, Shokan, etc.)
Lunars become Oni
Manses become sites for temples and their power is generally unknown to most of the population since so few can actually use it.


Plenty more could be done with it and I'm not completely sure about all of them, but its certainly possible to create new settings using the same mechanics.

1of3
2008-06-15, 12:43 PM
1of3: thanks, nice. We call it a "cooperative game" and not strictly a "RPG".
I don't remember neither the exact definition nor the formal differences.
I once invented a diceless game that was quite similar to this.

The author calls it an RPG. Considering that people play roles and roll dice, that title would be justified.

Furthermore it is hardly any more cooperative than, say, D&D. In fact the GM can hit the players much harder, since they can overrule anything with a die roll.

Eldritch_Ent
2008-06-15, 02:11 PM
You cannot separate Setting and rules.


Yes you can!

Dan_Hemmens
2008-06-15, 04:18 PM
Ultimately the OP is right for some definitions of "setting" and wrong for others.

The rules define the sorts of things that PCs do in the game, it is therefore vital that the setting be the kind of world in which people do those sorts of things (although this is not always the case, because some games simply don't match their source material).

On the other hand, the same mechanical effect could represent a dozen different things. For example, the "Trickery" Domain and its effects doesn't need to literally require a God of Trickery, it could just as easily represent a God of Justice whose followers feel the need to use stealth to serve him, or a God of the Night, or a sect of atheist mages who use quasi-divine magic with an emphasis on concealment.

Swordguy
2008-06-15, 05:06 PM
In brief: The mere existance of rules systems like GURPS invalidates your argument.

Using the Core Rules, I could create the following:

1) A swashbuckling scallywag in a historically accurate victorian era adventure

<snip>

10) Honor Harrington (complete with Nimitz).

Since all these are in *drastically* different settings, I would have to say that rules can indeed be seperated from settings.

Incorrect. The setting determines which rules you use, after all. I daresay you wouldn't use the GURPS Mecha book for a "swashbuckling scallywag in a historically accurate victorian era adventure". Your choice to use that book (and its attendant rules) is determined entirely by the setting of your game.


The rules MUST flow from the setting. As an example: Part of the setting of a game may be that there are swords, and they are weapons that cut or slice an opponent. Therefore, it follows that the rule to model the fluff text of a sword will include a damage rating of some kind, and the detail that that damage rating is slicing or cutting damage (if the level of abstraction required in the system supports different physical damage types).

Every trope, every conceit is part of the game's setting. It is from those that the rules are determined. No magic in a setting? That's a SETTING detail that requires a rule (casters don't exist) to accurately represent the setting. If you have rules that don't represent the setting (magic in the Honorverse, Mechs in period Victorian England, weapons that deal lethal damage in TOON), then you aren't playing in that setting.

holywhippet
2008-06-15, 07:08 PM
You can get around setting specific rules by either ignoring them or finding an alternate justification for them. The cleric bonus to stealth? Just argue they are part of some kind of secret order studying forbidden knowledge or are part of a secret order out to investigate something. Thus they need to sneak around to avoid detection from time to time and have improved their stealth abilities accordingly.

elliott20
2008-06-16, 12:01 AM
but if you're ignoring the rules in the book, you're not really strictly speaking, playing the game in it's entirety. (Not that there is anything wrong with that. It's just that, it's not quite the same once you've changed enough rules)

some settings are just more suitable for certain kinds of games then others. And I find that the more generic a system tries to be, the less "out of the box" it will be. And more often, those are the ones that end up with 15 different expansions, 30 different source books, and a good whole lot more free time put into game preparation.

Fhaolan
2008-06-16, 12:52 AM
but if you're ignoring the rules in the book, you're not really strictly speaking, playing the game in it's entirety. (Not that there is anything wrong with that. It's just that, it's not quite the same once you've changed enough rules)

some settings are just more suitable for certain kinds of games then others. And I find that the more generic a system tries to be, the less "out of the box" it will be. And more often, those are the ones that end up with 15 different expansions, 30 different source books, and a good whole lot more free time put into game preparation.

Yes, indeed. The more a system is truely universal, the more it will need to include rule structures that will not be necessary for all settings. Afterall, how likely is it that you will need starship combat in a historically-based game set during the Norman invasion of England?

However, that does not mean that the generic system cannot support this specific setting. It does mean that, likely, the system will need to be supported by the GM in ways that a system specific for the setting would be by the game company that publishes it. It really depends on what your goal is.

For example: I have a campaign setting that has existed for about thirty years, evolving and changing over time and as my tastes change. It has many different features, some of which are blatently stolen from other settings or more likely modified versions of such that are almost unrecognizable. Only a generic system like GURPS is capable of modelling this setting, as any setting-specific system will involve core conceits that are functionally incompatable with the setting. Even ones that I originally stole stuff from. To get more specific, Earthdawn and D&D 4e are too magic-common for the setting. 3.x is as well, technically, but my players have so far been willing to ignore the parts of 3.x that would invalidate the setting for the convenience of not having to deal with GURPS char-gen. :)

PnP Fan
2008-06-16, 09:37 AM
I would propose that the truth is somewhere between "inseperable" and "independant".

When it comes right down to it, most rules sets revolve around the idea of task resolution, whether you use 1d20 + mods, or 3d6 + mods, or whatever. The basic mechanic of task resolution should be independant of genre or setting. This is something that GURPs excells at, a basic set of rules for task resolution that apply across any genre or setting. The basic d20 mechanic isn't bad either,( though I think our simulationist friends might disagree with that assertion).

When you start talking about genre (not setting!) tropes, you inevitably introduce things that are genre specific. As several have pointed out, things like starships and hyperspace travel don't work in a fantasy genre game. Regardless, these genre specific ideas should apply across any setting within that genre. This is where a lot of the GURPs splatbooks come in (not all). They provide genre specific rules for how to resolve tasks in a setting that is within a particular genre. Similarly, D&D is a specific case of the d20 mechanic, set up for the High Fantasy genre. Ultimately, you're still dealing with the basic task resolution system, but you are applying it to a particular set of genre assumptions (piloting, spellcasting).

Eventually, you look at a specific setting. The setting will have a much more detailed set of assumptions, and descriptions that may necessitate specific rules. This is where your Universal systems tend to start failing in certain details. The basic GURPs mechanic, for example, is IMO hard to apply to the setting specific concept of Humanity from Vampire. In GURPs, and D&D this is the point where you start throwing sections of the splatbook out that don't apply, or create specific mechanics that only apply. In White Wolf, this is where you find temples that hold glorious power that you can 'feed' off of, that don't exist in other White Wolf systems. Conversely, your setting specific games tend to reflect the specific setting very well, because they make no attempt to meet any of the other general genre assumption, other than the one's that directly apply. However, their task resolution system can usually be adapted to a variety of other things, in or out of genre.

In short, you are specifically right, but generally wrong.
;-)

PnP Fan
2008-06-16, 09:39 AM
I would propose that the truth is somewhere between "inseperable" and "independant".

When it comes right down to it, most rules sets revolve around the idea of task resolution, whether you use 1d20 + mods, or 3d6 + mods, or whatever. The basic mechanic of task resolution should be independant of genre or setting. This is something that GURPs excells at, a basic set of rules for task resolution that apply across any genre or setting. The basic d20 mechanic isn't bad either,( though I think our simulationist friends might disagree with that assertion).

When you start talking about genre (not setting!) tropes, you inevitably introduce things that are genre specific. As several have pointed out, things like starships and hyperspace travel don't work in a fantasy genre game. Regardless, these genre specific ideas should apply across any setting within that genre. This is where a lot of the GURPs splatbooks come in (not all). They provide genre specific rules for how to resolve tasks in a setting that is within a particular genre. Similarly, D&D is a specific case of the d20 mechanic, set up for the High Fantasy genre. Ultimately, you're still dealing with the basic task resolution system, but you are applying it to a particular set of genre assumptions (piloting, spellcasting).

Eventually, you look at a specific setting. The setting will have a much more detailed set of assumptions, and descriptions that may necessitate specific rules. This is where your Universal systems tend to start failing in certain details. The basic GURPs mechanic, for example, is IMO hard to apply to the setting specific concept of Humanity from Vampire. In GURPs, and D&D this is the point where you start throwing sections of the splatbook out that don't apply, or create specific mechanics that only apply. In White Wolf, this is where you find temples that hold glorious power that you can 'feed' off of, that don't exist in other White Wolf systems. Conversely, your setting specific games tend to reflect the specific setting very well, because they make no attempt to meet any of the other general genre assumption, other than the one's that directly apply. However, their task resolution system can usually be adapted to a variety of other things, in or out of genre.

In short, you are specifically right, but generally wrong.
;-)

ShneekeyTheLost
2008-06-18, 08:04 PM
Incorrect. The setting determines which rules you use, after all. I daresay you wouldn't use the GURPS Mecha book for a "swashbuckling scallywag in a historically accurate victorian era adventure". Your choice to use that book (and its attendant rules) is determined entirely by the setting of your game.

I believe you neglected to read one very important word in the first paragraph of my post. I mentioned that I can, and have, written up EVERY SINGLE one of those characters, and can write up for those genres, FROM CORE. That means WITHOUT EDITING THE RULES. I didn't use any GURPS splatbook, thus the rules I used were not altered in any way to create multiple different characters from multiple different genres and settings. Heck, I can use the SAME character, designed as a thief in a fantasy setting without any inherint fantasy elements in the character itself, and use him in a realistic setting, without changing one bit of information on the character sheet. In fact, the Core GURPS 4th ed PROVES my point: Dai Blackthorn, the character used as the example, is written up in both a realistic medevil setting, AND a futuristic setting, and is the exact same character writeup in both settings.



The rules MUST flow from the setting. As an example: Part of the setting of a game may be that there are swords, and they are weapons that cut or slice an opponent. Therefore, it follows that the rule to model the fluff text of a sword will include a damage rating of some kind, and the detail that that damage rating is slicing or cutting damage (if the level of abstraction required in the system supports different physical damage types).

Completely incorrect. A sword is a sword, be it a 14th century cuttlas, a Katana from an anime, or a vibro-blade of space-opera design. All of them cut. You've just proven my point that rules are NOT defined by setting, because you can use that same sword design in any setting.


Every trope, every conceit is part of the game's setting. It is from those that the rules are determined. No magic in a setting? That's a SETTING detail that requires a rule (casters don't exist) to accurately represent the setting. If you have rules that don't represent the setting (magic in the Honorverse, Mechs in period Victorian England, weapons that deal lethal damage in TOON), then you aren't playing in that setting.

Again, you are confusing game system with game play. You can use the same game system, and the same game rules, in multiple different genres. What you have confused, however, is building a character in a given setting requires non-system guidelines for character generation. The same system can be used to generate any genre you want, depending on how you use it. It's no different than using a staff to smack someone, or poke someone. It's the same stick. It's not a different stick just because you poke with it instead of swing it.

Occasional Sage
2008-06-18, 08:50 PM
I don't agree that setting and rules *can't* be separated, but I have problems with most games that do so. Anything (broadly speaking, for the sake of ease) can be converted to, say, the d20 system, but I don't think they necessarily *should* be.

Rules as written influence the play within the setting. It's unavoidable. When you change the system, however strong the new one is it doesn't have the same flavor and feel. In some games, that's not important. In others, it breaks the entire experience.

Dervag
2008-06-18, 09:19 PM
Here's my take on it:

The original poster made a correct observation, but failed to develop it in a way that would have made the logic clear. To make matters worse, the words "rules" and "setting" do not mean the same thing to all people.
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Here's what I think is going on.

Some rules are universal and independent of their setting. They can be applied to many settings, or even to any imaginable setting, without losing effectiveness. The d20 system in its abstract form ("you roll a d20, and there are modifiers, and you want to roll high") is an example of this. Such a system will work in fantasy or steampunk or space opera. No problem. Easy. But...

No setting is independent of its rules. Every setting must contain specific things that are possible or impossible; what is impossible is defined by the rules.

Conversely, what is easy is defined by the rules. In D&D, healing from injury is fairly easy given a commonly available kind of specialist. It is not difficult to write encounters in which a party of protagonists is credibly threatened but no one is killed using D&D rules.

This promotes a certain style of play, and a certain kind of setting. "Adventuring parties" of people who go out and get into fights for non-specific benefits or even the sheer love of doing so, and who do it all the time are common. This is not like real life; in the real world people generally only get into fights and keep fighting if they are being rewarded in some specific way or carrying out some mission they deem necessary. They will not go wandering off into the wilderness to fight bears or wildebeests just for the heck of it. A person who did that in real life would be deeply disturbed.

In the setting of D&D this is normal and entirely reasonable, though. Because if you have a cleric, it's quite possible that you can go pick fights all day in the hope that the things you're killing will have some neat treasure. And this is actually profitable even if you aren't going after treasures you know are there. And you can be reasonably confident that you won't die, or if you do die that you will get better.
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How different in a setting where healing is not so easy, or where injuries tend to be more severe. Consider the rules of the superhero RPG "Godlike." In Godlike, getting hurt is easy and a lot of weapons do enough damage to kill a PC instantly. Restoring an injured person is difficult and requires you to take them out of action for a long time to heal.

Hence, no adventuring parties. In fact, under normal conditions the superpowered "Talents" of Godlike wouldn't be going out and fighting each other at all. It's too dangerous; you could easily get killed by a chance round squeezed off by a panicking enemy grunt.

Of course, the game is set during World War Two, so the Talents have plenty of reasons to be fighting regardless of the risks. But you see the point. If healing in Godlike were as easy and quick as in D&D, the setting would be different.

Similar comments apply to other rules of the Godlike setting, and of any given D&D setting.
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What this comes down to is that the setting cannot be fully divorced from the rules. There may be more than one set of rules that could be used to implement a setting, but you can't apply just any set of rules and expect it to be a good fit.


Completely incorrect. A sword is a sword, be it a 14th century cuttlas, a Katana from an anime, or a vibro-blade of space-opera design. All of them cut. You've just proven my point that rules are NOT defined by setting, because you can use that same sword design in any setting...

Again, you are confusing game system with game play. You can use the same game system, and the same game rules, in multiple different genres. What you have confused, however, is building a character in a given setting requires non-system guidelines for character generation. The same system can be used to generate any genre you want, depending on how you use it. It's no different than using a staff to smack someone, or poke someone. It's the same stick. It's not a different stick just because you poke with it instead of swing it.Hold on a minute.

That's not really the point here; I think you've misunderstood the original post.

The rules for 'poking with a stick' are not inseparable from the setting, except insofar as the setting must have sticks one can poke with. Since some kind of stick is going to be available in (almost) any imaginable setting, that means that rules for poking with a stick can in fact be universal.

Similarly, a ruleset can have universal rules for things like persuading someone to do what you want, winning an arm wrestling contest, or anything else that will exist in all settings. Thus, such rules can be separated from setting.

However, even the complete set of these rules does not define a setting, precisely because it is universal. I am not familiar with the GURPS rules. However, based on the descriptions I've heard, I'm going to make a tentative statement:

I think that if you use only the GURPS core rules, you cannot define a specific setting. You would have to create supplementary rules to exclude the things that do not belong in the setting (laser pistols in Victorian London, sorcery in the Honorverse). And yes, the lists of available equipment and powers are rules. It is a rule that the next time our GURPS Honor Harrington levels up, she cannot get a level in "sorceress" or whatever. Conversely it is a rule that you cannot use your Victorian character's skill at inventing to whip up an Honorverse weapon such as a hand pulser or an X-ray laser missile warhead.

Both those rules are necessary to the setting and inseparable from the setting. Without rules that constrain a character's ability to act, you cannot set the boundaries of the possible- which are a major part of the definition of any setting. Glorantha's setting may work for any number of rulesets, but it jolly well won't work with a ruleset that declares automatic rifles available.
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I would propose that the truth is somewhere between "inseperable" and "independant".

When it comes right down to it, most rules sets revolve around the idea of task resolution, whether you use 1d20 + mods, or 3d6 + mods, or whatever. The basic mechanic of task resolution should be independant of genre or setting. This is something that GURPs excells at, a basic set of rules for task resolution that apply across any genre or setting. The basic d20 mechanic isn't bad either,( though I think our simulationist friends might disagree with that assertion).You could reply to the simulationists as follows:

"d20 may be a bad system for simulating task resultion. However, it is equally bad, without exception, across the board. It isn't better at simulating task resolution in sword-and-sorcery than it is in space opera or steampunk. Therefore, while it may or may not be any good, it is at least generic."

elliott20
2008-06-18, 11:10 PM
another thing I would like to comment on is also my belief on core mechanics.

I personally DO believe that it makes a difference. i.e. with d20, it is implicit that all tasks have a variance of 10 going in each direction. While the actual task and difficulty of it is largely dependant upon the DC set by the GM, the variance of your performance is not. Sure, a bard with +20 to his perform is never going to give a BAD performance, but chances of him giving his best (nat 20) and his worst (nat 1) is just as great. There is nothing wrong with this, necessarily. It just means that no matter what you do in the end, you're expected to have a wide variety of performance. Chance plays a large role here.

Now, take a mechanic that say, uses d10s. There is far less variance in the rolls, thereby making performance less erratic. now say we were to use 3d6 for task resolution. the random outcome is going to start looking more and more like a bell curve, making the outcome more and more dependable.

On the other end of the spectrum, you'll have games where chance is pretty much removed from the game, like say, Chess. In this case, your decisions and maneuvers have a direct relationship with the outcome.

Not to say that one is necessarily better than the other. But I do think core mechanics count for flavor and settings too.