System Check

Summary

A look at different systems which contain elements that can be useful for other systems, including GURPS

There are many game systems around these days. A few of them exist because they withstood the test of time; D&D is a notable example. Others are newcomers, created specifically to promote a new angle of gaming; Vampire The Masquerade is one of those.

One clear reason that they all continue to exist is that they all offer something unique to the roleplaying experience. Otherwise a single Super RPG would have come into existence instead. In the following, I will go through a line of systems and take out things that could be perceived as a virtue of the system. This is not about how easy (or even how realistic) the rules are, or even how well-supported the system is. It is a matter of the roleplaying experience that the game builds around, something that can be extracted and ported to other systems. The exact meaning of this should become clear with the reading of the descriptions (for the same reason, this is not a Pros and Cons of System X comparison; it's about what can be used, not about what cannot). There is a quick summary at the end, for those not interested in the details.

Gurps

It might seem odd to include Gurps in this list, as Gurps is essentially the platform Next Level builds upon. There are two reasons it is very important, however: Firstly, people from other systems may need to understand the comparisons by knowing the base platform, and second, we need to know what virtues of the system should be treasured.

Gurps has the greatest virtue of being generic, as is its intent. This allows the use of many genres, and the mixing of elements from each. It also, however, has the virtue of essentially being fairly simple (with some exception concerning combat). There are no serious binding limits to what can be done, and any trait of a character (abilities, skills, etc.) is fairly modular. The result is that many things can be put into the system without causing great disturbances or requiring a lot of integration.

Dungeons & Dragons

The grand-daddy of roleplaying games is often under critique for its overly simplistic mentality, which is emphasized by the 'Dungeons' in its title. But there are quite a few logical attractions of the system. The first is the clear aim of the game: Combat. Hardline fans know this is what the system does best, and that is what they want. The class system provides ready-to-use concepts for this, with added features available. But another is its amount of CrunchyBits. This is present in nearly every aspect of the game; you can find a powerful sword, or you can get a powerful character trait when you reach a new level.

What makes this even more powerful is the fact that characters do not evolve as much as chunk up regularly. A player works long and hard to get what it takes to get a big increase in abilities. That sudden release is worth as much as saving the cash for a new toy for months. It concentrates the enjoyment of letting characters grow.

Munchkin

This is actually the munchkin card game more than the RPG. The reason for including it is simply that it is a reference to roleplaying in general (and a very blunt reference at that!). The simplicity of structure (go into a room, kill anything, take treasure) allows fast play and clear goals. Also, it can be argued to be a new 'adventure' every time it is played, since there are new monsters in new places and new conflicts. This dedication to quick, simple play can be used as a base for shaping much more complex adventures in other systems. It has already done so for the QuickNDirtyAdventures section! and of course, it is a clear example of how fast it should be possible to get into the game; if the average roleplaying adventure took a mere two minutes of card shuffling and friendly threats to get started, the experience would be very different.

Call of Cthulhu

Another Great Old One (pun actually intended...), this game scores high for its dedication to atmosphere. Its Lovecraftian tradition means it is created for suspense and a dark mood, examplified through the fact that characters rarely stand a chance against the real Bad Guys, but are instead forced to work by sneakiness and non-combat skills.

However, probably the greatest gift to roleplaying to come from this system is the concept of alternate hit-points, in this case Sanity. Therer are several aspects of Sanity that are highly interesting for roleplaying in general. the first is the fact that physical condition is not the only to take into account. This can be transfered to many other things, like sleep, patience, even overheating or illness; it's all simply an alternate on the ever-present hit-points.

But perhaps the most interesting influence of Sanity is that it functions (or can function) as a drama guide. Many other systems, including Gurps, make a big deal out of adding details to characters that allow better roleplaying; allignments, disadvantages, destinies, goals and so on. But with Sanity, these are variable! The more Sanity one loses, the more one should feel encouraged to play scared or outright insane. In the best of cases, players can be seen to imitate growing madness as these points drop. It need never become old or slip into the background, because it is constantly changing. this is a great help for players to 'get into character'.

Vampire the Masquerade

With Humanity, Vampire emulates the Sanity points of Call of Cthulhu. This is especially important to a game requiring players to get into a mindset as (hopefully!) alien to humans as being an urban predator with the instincts of an animal. But in Vampire, the background is turned upside down, making player characters extremely powerful (though their 'colleagues' are arguably more powerful most of the time). It also introduces the notion of moral choices and player (not just PC but player) dilemmas. It can, for most purposes, be seen as the first socially and emotionally challenging roleplaying, at least as a system; other games may have toyed with the ideas, but this game makes it the very foundation of its setting. This adds a whole new layer of player involvement; the real, player-based notion of 'winning' the game comes starkly up against the concept of playing an alien role. Few games can claim that their aliens or mythical races encourage that much focus on alternate mindsets.

On a note for this is the rest of the World of Darkness line. Werewolf turns more feral, making the game more beastly. A lot of ambiguity is cut and The Beast becomes a more clear experience, with less human mindset to interfere. Mage goes the other way and makes the human mindset a much greater factor, pushing the characters further into The Real World, though with still a great personal detachment. Both of these reflect the ideas so interesting in Vampire, but not with the same knife's edge balance between the human and inhuman. The rest of the World of Darkness line does not seem to contain serious bids for new virtues.

HOL

HOL, or Human Occupied Landfill, is firstly noticable for 1) extremely foul language, 2) insane attitudes towards the entire idea of roleplaying, and of course 3) being handwritten in a way that is clearly meant to be uncharming. It's relations to Call of Cthulhu are interesting, though: Characters are insanely outmatched and born to be tortured, it has a system of alternate hit-points (Pain), and it is very built on its dark setting rather than its system. It is, of course, meant more as a darkly humorous twist on roleplaying than Call of Cthulhu, but the points still stand. One interesting addition is the Grace of God concept, in which a secretly rolled amount of lifelines exists; a player can use one in bad situations, and be somewhat saved (out of frying pan, into GET IT OFF GET IT OFF). The first to unknowingly use it when there are no more points gets shafted in any way seen fit by the GM. This is an alternate hit-point pool that has no real relation to the characters, but is meant for the game.

Paranoia

Like many others, Paranoia holds a dedicated to a mood, in this case insanity (arguably HOL mimics that, while Vampire and Call of Cthulhu aim for fear, and Vampire also moral issues). Beyond that, Paranoia is mainly interesting for its 'everyone has 6 clones' policy, granting the players liberty to get involved in suicidal foolishness (for which Paranoia's Alpha Complex is pretty known). But also, Paranoia has the interesting angle of pitting players a bit against each other, as they assign blame and are encouraged to solve problems through rampant treason, somewhat reflected in Munchkin, too. And of course the fact that everyone has treasonous mutant powers and are part of treasonous secret societies means there is a lot of, well, paranoia going around. In some cases, this is a warped version of the 'hidden conflict' motive of Vampire, but it is decidedly more insane and humorous.

Aria

While the complexity of the rules undoubtedly became its downfall, this game has the virtue of bringing adventures beyond the single individual characters, and making societies and social groups a part of it. Encouragement to consider oneself a bloodline or tribe rather than a character enforces this attitude, and the work done on providing a rules structure for the progress of a society (technology, social structure, etc.) is interesting. The rules make it hard to use, but the idea is useful.

Shadowrun and Earthdawn

These two deserve mention mainly for their attitude towards setting. The experimental (for their times) nature of settings not only makes for interesting settings, but opens for a whole line of concepts that can, ironically, be of interest to other games of a more 'traditional' nature (or not traditional; it's not a requirement). Opening for new non-rule ideas is a virtue of special worth in a cross-genre setting.

Summary

To sum up ideas that may be scavenged from the aforementioned games:

Flexibility (Gurps)
Concentrated 'chunky' progress (D&D)
Ease of use (Munchkin)
Clear standard purpose or focus (D&D, Munchkin)
Sense of power and importance/ego-gratification (D&D, to a lesser degree Vampire)
Dedication to mood/atmosphere (Call of Cthulhu, Vampire (both spooky), HOL, Paranoia (both crazy comedy))
Alternate 'hit-points' for characters (Call of Cthulhu (sanity), Vampire (humanity), HOL (pain))
Alternate 'hit-points' for the game in general (HOL, possibly requested Hollywood style games)
Enforcing alternate mindsets (Vampire)
Extending the game beyond mere characters (Aria)
complex experimental setting and resulting concepts (Shadowrun/Earthdawn)

As it is written here, it looks fairly theoretical. And to some extent, it is; the purpose of NextLevel is to find practical ways of using these ideas outside their original game and intention.

Request - I have a few games I know of which hold interesting elements, but which I have not yet tried or read myself. These are mainly of the Hollywood Emulation sort, which use things like Drama Points, by this or other names, which I find intriguing. I will be using the concept, but would like if someone could tell me of their experiences with such games.

Author

NeverCool

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