Freeform or Systems?
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I want a robust system that lets me do Cool Things. I’ve been trying out various system-light games over the last couple of years, and even in a tabletop environment, I really want a game where I know what resources I have, what skills make my character unique, and a bit of randomness to keep the tension high.
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I wonder how well Index Card RPG could translate to MU*. It’s been my favorite tabletop system for years because it is sufficient to distinguish your character and handle power scales while also staying out of the way and being blessedly lightweight.
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@Pyrephox I highly recommend Legend in the Mist. It’s light- to medium-weight and very narrative. My group now uses it almost exclusively, regardless of genre. We’ve used it for fantasy (both horror and more traditional), sci-fi (Star Wars and Transformers), and as a replacement for WoD. The best thing about it is that most of these “hacks” require little to no work. The most we did was add more “might” scales for Transformers to represent the huge difference between humans and robots.
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as someone who played and staffed on an x-men-derived, OC-heavy game with freeform powers for years back in the day…
…i wouldn’t want to go back to appstaffing those lol. it got so exhausting defining limits. i think i’d like SOME sort of system framework nowadays.
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I think it would be help to clarify the distinction between the two. How many rules are needed before a “freeform” game is now a “system” game? It might be something like the Supreme Court’s definition of obscenity “I know it when I see it,” but it might be helpful to roughly delineate the boundaries, because I consider rules-lite RPGs to still be a system. If a book is being used to run a game, even if it’s only 10 pages, that’s a system to me. Whereas, kids playing cops and robbers in the backyard is freeform.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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@Ominous To me, a system is some sort of mechanics ruling for abilities/powers/etc. that gives some fairness/stability to the game.
It could be as simple as ‘any time you want to do something requiring a roll, roll a D6 and if you get a 5 or 6 you succeed’. Or it could be something as complex as I hear that FATAL system.
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I need the restriction of a system, and even then I get paralysed by choice more often than I’d care to reflect on. If I can be anything, I end up being nothing.
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@Ominous when i staffed on a mutant/superpowers game with freeform powers, we had no system. there was no dice and no rolling. there was no book. powers were defined by writing them out and defining whatever limits needed to be defined for that power, with the overall power level of the game just being controlled by the humans doing approvals.
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Parameters are important, but it harshes my vibe when poses take a backseat to a wall of dice roll output.
ETA: It’s also totally chill that crunchy mechanics are some folks’ happy place. We can play different places.
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@Roz my anxiety shot through the roof reading this.
