When System Matters

February 7, 2009 No comments

Last week I was supposed to be a guest on Pulp Gamer, but alas I was brutally ill (same reasons I’ve had guest bloggers running this place) and my wife took away my car keys and forced me stay home and rest. Something about if I wasn’t well enough to go to work for three days I probably wasn’t well enough to go hang out with friends and talk about games. Sheesh! Anyway, one of the topics of discussion was “Mechanics Matter”. It was a semi-rebuttal to a post I wrote entitled Setting Matters, the points of which I feel stand on their own so I’ll let you wander off and read that at your leisure. The question that arises is whether system matters in relation to the setting you’re using or the genre you’re running. Of course system matters. In my mind, that’s never been the question. They real question is one of when system matters.

The Ron Edwards Stance
Let’s backtrack a bit to the origins of the whole “system matters” discussion, an article written by Ron Edwards titled “System Does Matter“. It’s worth a read, and it’s the source of the whole Gamist-Narrativist-Simulationist game design meme. To summarize, Edwards argues that a good gamemaster could be better if he didn’t have to spend time tweaking mechanics. The mechanics should support the game’s outlook, and do what the game is intended to do.

Now, I don’t disagree with that. this is why i’m a fan of games with low prep time like Savage Worlds and Risus. As a gamemaster and as a player, there are certain games that are better fits for certain settings. That part that makes me chuckle is the implication that if gamemasters don’t need to monkey around with the mechanics, they won’t, and will spend more time on plot and story. I will stand here, proudly raise my hand, and say, “not me”. I am a rules hacker. I could take a perfect system and find something I wanted to change, or try to improve, or add to in some fashion. That is my nature. That is part of what makes things fun for me. I like creating house rules, messing around under the hood, souping up the hot rod. I will also use game systems for purposes other than those in which they are intended. Usually it’s because there’s some element of the mechanics and the setting that sync up for me, in my mind as least. No, Mutants & Masterminds was not created to run Mexican soap operas, but don’t tell me I can’t do it. If I want to run a Star Wars game using Call of Cthulhu it may make me a touch insane, but it doesn’t mean that I, or the players sitting at my table enjoying themselves, are wrong.

Flavor Mechanics
This is one instance of when system matters. Genre emulation, setting the mood and tone of the game, being able to handle the special needs of the setting. It’s hard to play a western game in a rules set with no gunfighting mechanics. you need to be able to do the things you need to do. When great systems are married to great settings, it’s bliss. When generic systems fall down, it tends to be because they’re too generic. System matters — but not the whole system. The pareto principle applies: 80% of your rules are going to be boilerplate, and 20% are going to be setting-specific. The rules for riding a horse are going to be pretty bland and largely the same from system to system, unless riding horses is a major part of the setting, and that’s when system matters.

Edition Wars
When does system matter? When you need to bolster a flagging product line by introducing a new edition, with mechanics that have been expanded, cut down, streamlined or increased in complexity based on perceived market demand. Maybe that’s a cynical look at things, but it’s an occasional truth. Folks who don’t like the new rules will rebel but staying with the old edition or switching to a new game. It frequently has nothing to do with your actual game experience and more to do with the almighty dollar, but it matters to the publisher and frequently to the fans.

Familiarity
Building on that last point, there are people who stick with rules that are probably not the best fit for the setting, but they’re familiar. The quirks and idiosyncrasies of the system have shaped the setting, and have become sort of charming in and over themselves. We love them for their flaws. A different system might do the same thing objectively “better”, but subjectively it’s not the same. Certainly a gamemaster who has developed good gamemastering skills might do better in a system that’s cleaner and runs easier, but they may not want to. That’s their choice. system matters when it’s just plain old illogical personal preference. The game runs smoothly, possibly better than the new system would, because the gamemaster knows it backward and forward, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and can focus on telling the story without having to look things up.

Creativity
I want to circle back to my rules hacking tendencies and using inappropriate systems. I think it sparks creativity because you need to look at things in a different way. I wrote up Star Wars characters in Dark Heresy precisely because it made me look at those characters and situations in a different light. If you think I was joking about running Star Wars using Call of Cthulhu, consider Anakin Skywalker finding his mother killed by sand people and losing some SAN, then going out and slaughtering all of the sand people and losing even more SAN, and THEN he turns to the Dark Side, and then thinking he’s killed his wife, and then getting his limbs hacked off and getting burned by lava and losing still more SAN. Is it the ideal system for that setting? No. Does viewing the setting through the filter of those mechanics generate some food for thought and some story potential? For me, absolutely. When does system matter here? When it aids in my brainstorming process.

Summary
I don’t believe in universal truths in roleplaying games. I think every one of us comes to the table with different agendas and different expectations. I think every game designer, and every game master, has something different that they hope to accomplish with a game. There’s no perfect system, and there’s no wrong way to play so long as everyone is having a good time. System matters when, and only when, it impacts the gamemaster and the players in any way, positive or negative.