I’m absolutely all up for systemless settings. Or systemless anything, for that matter. No tie-in = no buy-in, and all that jazz.

I find that supplements that contain few rules tend to be better quality overall because the writer has to actually put effort into describing things.

For example, a D&D adventure might describe an NPC as “Max the Knife, Rogue-3, hp23, AC14, Dagger +3 (1d4)” or pad the whole thing out with a quarter page statblock while a systemless adventure would say “Max is a one-eyed thief who gained with nickname of The Knife because of a dagger-shaped tattoo across his right eye which he…….”. I know which I’d prefer

The disadvantage of systemsless settings (and adventures) is that the GM has to spend prep-time putting the numbers in place for their chosen system. With most pre-created settings they’d have to number-juggle anyhow to suit their players’ level and play-style, so it’s not that much of a biggie in reality. If the writer tries to use existing creatures (from a Monster Manual, say) in their setting, 90% of the work is done already for the most popular systems.

One possibility is if the setting writer encourages people who buy the setting to publish their conversions for other GMs to use, adapt and share. That way the writer can concentrate on the creative, and let his reader base plug in the numbers. (hint, hint!)

Just my 10c, adjusted for inflation (ie, about $15).

I second and fully endorese everything that greywulf already said.

When I’ve GMed I’ve almost never bothered statting anything. If the NPC is a cold-blooded Russian arms dealer, and it would be cool, then sure, he has an RPG in his trunk. And the rocket does about *fake roll* however much damage is required by the plot balanced by enjoyment.

So yeah, I think there’s a market for systemless settings.

Have you thought about non-gaming applications? With the right license a setting could be used for fiction too. Or indie video games. Or comics. Whatever.

I’d love it.

I’m actually considering using the generic 10-scale I developed for Imagination’s Toybox, rating abilities and such on a scale of 1-10. Then folks can decide what that means in terms of the system of their choice.

This a swell idea. I would fully support it. Even though I’m a New School guy whose been around since Old School; I agree with Greywulf in that system-free products are often the most inspiring, etc. Using a flexible system for hinting at what the stats should be would have to be implemented though. A description for “Bigaboo the Wizard” for example might include a suggested list of spells, or type of spells, and maybe a short _descriptive_ list of gear, etc. Like what MadBrew said — a shop that focused on story dev on one side, and the crunch developers on the other would work well.

There are also PDF printing engines out there that could drop stats into the PDF document on the fly depending on what system the gamer uses. I’m thinking about one or two packages written in PERL that do this. For example, they could choose “The High Adventure on Fire Mountain” and then choose “4E D&D” or “3E D&D” or “GURPS” and presto, the final PDF has all the system specific stats already dropped in place.

I’m looking forward to what you produce Berin.

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I’ve done a little ghost writing recently and I’m not adverse to a little more. Be happy to do some proof reading too.

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“set pieces?”

Hey, Hank? Pulp City?

I do like the idea of a setting specifically designed for any one of several systems, with stat-block appendixes.

Regarding the Troll example, this is why I like the statted appendices idea. The character of Brak the Bridge Guard is described in the main text with the important bits, personality, catch phrases, physical description, and generic semi-statistics like ‘big, dumb & tough’. In the back of the book, in the Midian section, it states he is a medium-sized Rock Troll. In the D&D appendix, Brak is listed as a Half-Orc. The Palladium appendix states he is an Ogre. Little details like species can be part of a side bar item. The core of the character concept need not even be non-Human. The side bar could look something like:

Brak the Bridge Guard
D&D–Half-Orc
Palladium–Ogre
Midian–Troll

But now I’m getting into layout minutiae, rather than the subject at hand.

While I get what Golgotha is saying, I think following this strategy runs the risk of being *too* generic.

While I understand that what a “troll” is varies from system to system, nine times out of ten they’re going to be large creatures with thick skin who regenerate. I’d rather see “troll” in a generic stat block, and then have your alt-stuff in an appendix.

Just my 2 cents.

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For the most part we are already inundated with systemless settings.

They’re called “books”, and “video”.

Now system neutral is a different and practically impossible since systems are so fundamentally different. d20 came close to this but only for a “class of systems” not all systems.

I want stats, charts, details, mechanics, game running suggestions. In other words crunch. Fluff I can provide myself or from the mentioned books and video.

The main reason that system is typically included is not because it’s inherently tied to the setting material, but because most GMs have more setting material than they could possibly ever run just falling out the back of their heads. System material, by contrast, is usually tougher to put together. It was in d20.

This is really creepy. I had forgotten about this post. Rereading it–and the comments–I found I had something to say. Then I read #16, where some spud named Golgotha said the exact same thing I was going to, word for word… Creepy.

As I think about it more though, I’m really warming up to the idea of collaborative statting out of a systemless product. Some of us are system junkies. It’s reprehensible to abuse our sick need to tweak out a game system, but… but… I just can’t help myself.

“What we have here is pure, grade-A, crystallised, 2D20 roll-under-attribute. Come on, game fiend, you don’t have to mainline the whole thing. Just put the tip of the needle in…”

I’m reminded of the Thieves’ World setting which had stats for 12 or so different systems (all varied) for Sanctuary. One of the big detractions for this was the huge amount of material you’d never use (I’d used bits for D&D, AD&D, Runequest and Traveller but had never got into Arduin, T&T or The Fantasy Trip) – how maddening is it to buy a product that has significant bits that you’ll never use.

I’m not entirely sure system-free would be a win, for the reasons that njharman and Golgotha mention. Maybe three of your choice (d20, BRP and Savage Worlds) as well as the system for a single product? Or maybe putting out a pool of system books to support it (kind of a rules stylesheet idea as suggested by Mad Brew).

Maybe something that lends itself well to e-publishing or print-on-demand?

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I guess there are two questions here: 1) would I personally buy system-free setting material and 2) would numerous people buy system-free material.

1) No, I wouldn’t. Setting ideas are the one thing I don’t need help with – and if I did, there’s enough free systemless content given away on rpg.net, the RPG Bloggers’ Network and any fantasy novel I read that I don’t see a real point in paying for more stuff. Now, if reviewers start going crazy and everyone praises your material as the greatest thing ever, then I might re-consider – but even then this would be a case of you selling something that wouldn’t be particularly helpful to my games because I come up with my own settings.

2) I think you’d be lucky to receive as many purchases as there are comments in this thread, honestly. In part for the reasons listed above per 1), but also because almost every RPG fan I’ve met, when push comes to shove, is dramatically more likely to spend money on crunch than fluff. If the fluff comes with the specific species of crunch required, a sale is made.

There are other constraints on this project that have to be considered. To get the production value where you’d need it to be – professional design, professional editing – you have to spend money to get professionals. Then, to justify having paid for professional work, you’d have to inflate the price of what you’re selling far beyond what the market can bear out.

One thing that I think you could do that would be awesome would be to abandon the whole “I want to charge you money for my work” and simply give things away a la Encounter A Day. Of course, if the point of this is to get paid money for your work you could always put a “Donate” box on the blog, much like some freeware does for users. I suspect that you’d earn just as much total money with a “donate” button as you would with a requirement that people pay for your work.

If it’s good, some people will donate – not many, admittedly, but the number of potential donors would far exceed the number of potential buyers of a .pdf.

Easily! I used to love the campaign-less game settings (I think taking place in a single city) that Flying Buffalo used to put out in the 90′s. And the scale system sounds like a good way to do it.

@PaulJessup

A lulu release of setting ideas is a niche product. Perhaps there is some great nascent market for this of which I’m unaware – though based on sales reports I’ve read of similar products via those who self-publish on DriveThru I think the likelihood of there being such a market is about as low as there being something good on network TV tonight.

Though I’m not sure how grognard status is relevant to this, I too started with 2e, and this informs and validates my views greatly (or not, or whatever).

For what it’s worth, I don’t game with rules lawyers. I kicked them out or stopped playing with them. My group is obsessed with storytelling and fluff, tinkering and discarding crunch when necessary to achieve this in our games.

That being said, loving fluff isn’t an indicator of being indifferent to crunch. I have yet to encounter a gamer who was incapable of coming up with system-less flavor on their own – and the existence of RPG.net and much of the content in the RPG bloggers network is non-trivial evidence for my claim.

But more importantly, having a gamer who loves fluff and is indifferent to crunch does not necessarily mean Berin has a likely customer. Realistically speaking, the people pre-disposed to buy a collection of systemless fluff by Berin are likely going to be readers of this blog; but having to pay for this content winnows that audience down a bit further.

This sort of release – a .pdf of ideas – is catering to a niche (fans of .pdfs) of a niche (Berin’s readers) of a niche (gamers who like systemless crunch) of a niche (gamers in general).

IF – and that’s a big IF – Berin wants to be compensated somewhat fairly for the work he’s producing, there are a lot of hidden costs (editing, layout, art) that have to be met in order to nail the presentation, all of which jack up the cost of doing this and shrink how much Berin will be paid. These things, of course, are necessary to get quality reviews – most reviews do mention the physical appearance of the finished product.

None of this is fair or particularly great to hear, but it’s the reality of being a writer – and as an editor (in print journalism) I think it’s something people need to understand. If you’re the Paul Jessup I think you are (professional writer), I think you understand this point, too.

Paul, you may be optimistic about the viability of this project at getting Berin a decent return, but that doesn’t make it an easier sell or make the market for stuff like this better than it actually is.

Of course, one way this might succeed might be to bypass the whole Lulu/self-publishing thing and see if one of the .pdf companies would be interested in taking a chance on the finished product. Putting an established brand behind the work would mitigate fears of low exposure as well as providing quality editing and layout without additional expense.

But the important question here is how much money Berin thinks is a reasonable return on his time investment. If this is something he’s doing because he wants to do it and would do it for free, then it’s probably worth doing (especially if it’s “donate if you like it”). But if Berin quite sensibly esteems his time and effort highly (as he would be justified in doing) then this isn’t the best way to get the amount of money he deserves.

Paul:

I think your standard of “anecdotal evidence” is a lot different than mine, at least where RPGs are concerned. There aren’t really any readily available objective studies on RPG markets that are undiluted by the taint of anecdote, especially since none of us have access to Wizards’ market analyses. I do have some information from acquaintances who publish through Drivethru, but I’m not really comfortable discussing actual sales numbers of acquaintances in public. I wouldn’t want someone airing my checking account, so I’m trying to walk the tightrope of talking about something I know without divulging private information.

You are correct, of course, that marketing is a factor – but Berin didn’t really throw this out there as if this is going to have a marketing campaign or anything like that. The proposal is putting some of his work up on lulu.com; I think we can both agree that such a proposal isn’t terribly promising if the goal is selling the work he puts on lulu.

“Just because someone can make something themselves doesn’t mean another person wouldn’t buy it.”

Yes, of course. But it also doesn’t mean another person WOULD buy it – which is the question Berin asked.

“But I’ve also been around the block enough to know that you can’t perdict the market for a product based on anecdotal evidence.”

This is where I disagree.

Simple logic tells us that releasing a product to a niche of a niche of a niche of a niche isn’t going to equal a large market barring several externalities adressed earlier, especially when the market as a whole isn’t terribly large; an accurate assessment, given the paucity of RPG books that hit the New York Times bestsellers’ lists and the “sales numbers” (entrails, illusions, number-ish figures) released by Wizards.

This intuition is further confirmed by examining sites that specialize in RPG .pdfs – where very few projects comparable to Berin’s initial systemless fluff pitch appears in the 100 best-selling products.

This idea(i.e., that non-experts can correctly analyze markets through empirical evidence or anecdote), of course, is born out in the real world – it isn’t the ideal circumstance for analysis, but it’s possible and often correct. Very few people have access to non-anecdotal evidence about America’s markets: but great numbers of people use reason to make predictions about those markets and the viability of products and/or industries. One doesn’t need access to auto industry balance sheets to realize that the Hummer isn’t a car that’s terribly popular when gas is expensive. One didn’t need to see the U.S. military’s analyses of post-war occupation in Iraq to know it would be extremely… difficult.

Perhaps Wizards’ market gurus disagree with me and we’ll be seeing loads of systemless setting material released solely through .pdf, but I doubt it – and I think it’s pretty telling that the only company with data that’s more than in some way anecdotal hasn’t glommed onto this idea themselves.

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