Hey Everyone,

So I've been working on a game *gasp* and I wanted to get everyone's opinion on something. My game is largely enspired by the idea of an Ensemble Cast or Show with alot of emphasis on Joss Whedon's Works.

As such its real strength I feel is providing a light but sturdy framework to evaluate who succeeds and a framework to force characters to learn about each other for bennies.

However in my presentation of the game itself, I'm presented with a bit of a quandry. The heart of the game , is focused on a Genre as apposed to a specific setting. As such I made my game focus on the genre and not be tied to any particular setting bits. So Should I make my game generic however?

I know its not truely generic (I dont think you'd get a Dnd type experiance out of it, maybe a dungeon crawl if you tried but not like a Dnd dungeon crawl) but its not tied to any particular setting and I like it this way. (I want to be able to do both the dirty dozen and oceans 11 )

The Point => Should I present my game as a Generic System (or unisystem or whatever) or Should I focus on one particular example setting (say Firefly with the serials rubbed off or something Simular)?

I can think of arguments for and against each. So tell me oh sages of theRPGsite, what do you think.

Quote from: Logos7;315318My game is largely enspired by the idea of an Ensemble Cast or Show with alot of emphasis on Joss Whedon's Works.

This says it all for me.  I think that you should stay on the focused genre angle rather than trying to retro-fit your game into a more generic project.

In today's marketplace, I would not want to be selling a new generic.   If ORE came out in 1990, it would have been a strong seller.   Today, it's barely registers a blip and its a very good system.

A genre game is much easier to market, especially at a genre that has been neglected because you can focus your message.   In today's market, I suspect buyers want a game that does one thing really great than ten things just kinda okay.

Quote from: Spinachcat;315380In today's marketplace, I would not want to be selling a new generic.   If ORE came out in 1990, it would have been a strong seller.   Today, it's barely registers a blip and its a very good system.

A genre game is much easier to market, especially at a genre that has been neglected because you can focus your message.   In today's market, I suspect buyers want a game that does one thing really great than ten things just kinda okay.

I wanted to quote this, because I think it's probably good advice that my own advice will add to, but before I get to my advice, you should know that I'm *not* your target market because I'm unlikely to buy a new game: I *strongly* prefer generic systems and am pleased with the ones I have.

That said, *ahem* -- I don't think you have to go 100% one way or the other.  I think that, to Spinachcat's point, it's probably a selling point to have  a genre-specific or even setting-specific game if you have good fictional content or can directly link to a highly-regarded property like Firefly.

However: if you structure your game and descriptive text right, you should be able to get across the idea that people who want to use for other things can easily do so. And you can even directly support that -- maybe a 4 page chapter at the end that demonstrates how you'd quickly and easily adapt the rules to a different setting?

I don't see why you can't have it all!

Cheers,
-E.

I can totally understand both sides that said,

part of the problem is that I DONT have access to the firefly stuff. I mean I'm pretty sure I can say the game was inspired by 'Firefly' and that I think all the existing systems for it more or less suck big sweaty balls, and that mine is better. But as far as getting actual examples and stuff I dont believe I can do too much. (That said, I may just do it anyway release it for free and await a cease and desist if it comes, and maybe make a painfully fanboy plead to joss himself if it comes to it )

That said, The combination of Westerns and Space Opera is certainly not intellectual property, So I'm not sure how far I can get with that however.

I'm also debating whether I should have a traditional GM or the broken down tasks that I had originally thought of.

Not all of that is technically in the Genericism vs Focus bit , but I think it probably helps locate the idea. As of now the game is fairly small (10 pages) and lacks alot of the filler of an RPG (like reams and reams of weapon descriptions) opting for a bit more narrative system, So I'm thinking of actually doing up the system multible times for different genres. Thus you'd get EnsembeX (the name of my system): Space Opera or EnsembleX: Vampire Hunter or Ensemble: Gangsters or something like that.

Thanks again for your thoughtful responses, so much more helpful than other places

Focus. If you want to use your rules for something totally different at some stage, worry about it then.