Universal role play system
A universal role-playing game system is a special kind of set of rules for a pen & paper role-playing game that can be adapted to many different game worlds , and rarely to different game styles. The terms generic role-playing system and universal system are also used synonymously .
Like other role-playing game systems , a universal (role-playing) system also contains rules for the course of the game ( game mechanics ) such as characteristics of the game characters, interactions and further development, but completely or almost completely dispenses with the description of a game world . Game worlds for such universal systems are mostly offered in the form of additional publications.
history
As the first universal role-playing game system at all, Chaosium developed the Basic Role-Playing system in 1980 by generalizing the fundamentals of the fantasy role-playing game RuneQuest . Hero Games / ICE began with Espionage as early as 1983 ! to expand the Hero System to areas beyond the original superhero role-playing game Champions , but the Hero System was not published as a stand-alone book until 1990. In 1986 the game The Fantasy Trip was developed into GURPS , the most successful universal role-playing game for a long time .
In 2000, Wizards of the Coast published the SRD (System Reference Document) for Dungeons & Dragons under the Open Game License . This laid down the basic rules for D&D (later referred to as the d20 system ), intended as the basis for publications that are compatible with the D&D game. As a result, a large number of game worlds and genre books were published on this basis.
Approaches and execution
Since a universal system cannot be played without a game world, the game master must either create one himself or purchase one in the form of a world or genre book that was developed for the universal system and contains all the rules and backgrounds that are specific to the game world presented or the genre apply. Genre books contain adaptations (or adaptation suggestions) for a certain genre, for example for fantasy, science fiction, horror or wild west, while world books contain material for very special game worlds, for example Terry Pratchett's Discworld or Suzuki Toshimichi's Bubblegum Crisis . There are various approaches to realizing the actual universal system:
One of the options is to only use the rules skeleton, i.e. the basic principles and mechanisms that are absolutely independent of the game world and genre. In some cases this means that - as with Basic Role-Playing and the d20 system - most world or genre books are not extensions of the basic system, but are in principle their own role-playing systems based only on comparable values.
Another possibility is to standardize as many principles as possible so that they are mechanically the same but can be described differently. For example, if both the success of magic and flying an airplane are decided using the same dice method, then you have such a system. The Hero System comes quite close to this principle, but most universal systems are a mixture of both possibilities.
In addition, there are systems that do not actually take a universal approach, but rather try to be universal within a certain genre. This makes it possible to place genre conventions in the set of rules, such as magic in the fantasy genre, firearms in modern genres and spaceships in science fiction , and only generalizes them in relation to the genre, so that, for example, the selection of the available magic and the way in which this is applied is not described in the rules, but in the game world. Examples of this type of system are the early Rolemaster for fantasy, Space Master for science fiction, or BESM for anime and manga .
Advantages and criticisms
Advantages for the manufacturer
An important advantage for a game publisher who speaks in favor of using a universal role-playing game system is its prevalence. The principle is referred to in economics as the network effect and basically states that it is not the best product that achieves the greatest success, but the best-known. Another advantage is, of course, that the production costs for a new role-playing game are lower if a universal role-playing game system is used, since the development effort for a new game mechanic is minimized. These are also the reasons for the use of "in-house" role-playing systems that have never been released as a stand-alone universal role-playing game system , such as the Interlock System from R. Talsorian Games , the Megaversal System from Palladium Books and the always similar system that from Fantasy Games Unlimited has been used.
Advantages for the players
The main advantage for the players when using a universal role-playing game system is that different game worlds can be tried out without having to learn the rules of the game again each time. In addition, a game master can invent any game world and then turn it into a complete role-playing game using a universal role-playing game system.
criticism
The biggest criticism of universal role-playing systems is that the game mechanics are often closely linked to the game world and thus make up part of the charm of a particular role-playing game - playing Castle Falkenstein is different from playing GURPS Castle Falkenstein. In addition, the individual game master who wants to use a universal role-playing game system has a lot of work to do with the adaptation to the selected game world due to the generalizations required in the system.
Universal role play systems
The most commercially successful universal systems include the D20 and GURPS . Other examples are Fate , FUDGE , The Pool , Tri-Stat dX , TWERPS and Wushu .
- → Main article : Section Universal Systems on List of Pen & Paper Role Playing Games
Individual evidence
- ↑ Shannon Appelcline: Brief History of the Game # 3. In: RPGnet. September 4, 2006, accessed July 8, 2011 .
- ^ System Reference Document. In: RPG.net. Retrieved July 11, 2011 .
- ↑ Open Gaming & d20. (No longer available online.) In: RPGuides. Archived from the original on February 8, 2011 ; Retrieved July 11, 2011 .
- ↑ Ryan S. Dancey: Open Gaming Interview With Ryan Dancey. In: The Most Dangerous Column in Gaming. Retrieved July 12, 2011 .
- ^ Jan Buck: Role-Playing Games and the Influence of JRR Tolkien . Research Paper. GRIN Verlag, 2003, ISBN 978-3-640-09146-1 .