Flying Buffalo seemed to have the corner on the systemless books.

The whole Citybook line and then there was the Lejentia boxed set.

Wasn't Hârn (Columbia Games?) originally a systemless setting?

Quote from: Omega;856706Wasn't Hârn (Columbia Games?) originally a systemless setting?

Good call -- yes indeed it was. One of its big selling features was N. Robin Crossby's unbelievable cartography skills. A solid supplement schedule helped as well. I don't recall any system conversion notes and there was no supporting fiction external to what they delivered.

Ultimately, though, I think it was adding the system that made it really successful.

I think that the Hârn setting books I own have "pseudo-stats" similar to Midkemia. But maybe they weren't there in the first printing, dunno.

In any case the material in Hârn is very concrete and close the ground--stuff that the PCs will interact with. So it's got the discipline that usually comes from statting things up.

Talislanta originally was a single systemless book (and pretty entertainingly written) but I don't know if it could have survived without the subsequent rulebooks.

Terracide is a great setting.  Own the HERO version.  Even though I generally play 4th edition with 5th edition's Change Enviroment and 6th edition's 1D3 stun multiplier.

I consider the HERO version pretty much a systemless setting.  Thinking of converting over to Classic Traveller.

The big genre hands down is fantasy. If you're doing just a stereotypical D&D kind of thing, then a lot of stuff can be referred to without needing a new system. The main game-referential thing is character 'levels', which is more of a finicky deal with 21st-century rules sets (and modern GMs perhaps even if 'OSR') than it was in the 1970s.

If you're doing something more innovative in your world-building, then you might want some rules to represent novel aspects.

A rules set, though, can be pretty brief by modern standards and its presentation artfully a means in itself of giving a picture of the world. I have in mind for instance Empire of the Petal Throne, Metamorphosis Alpha, and Chaosium games such as RuneQuest, Stormbringer and Call of Cthulhu.

There's not really much demand I think for yet another rules set trying to do the same thing as D&D without the brand, and the market seems pretty well glutted with worlds on the lines of Greyhawk's or Forgotten Realms. So, the fact that there's not a huge demand either for something more exotic doesn't seem especially daunting.

I wonder how much those people with a fetish for new ways of tossing dice actually play, but I guess they buy plenty of stuff anyhow.

My conclusion is that one might do best to make up a rules set that is just enough, not trying to be a magnum opus in its own right, and just give that away in online PDF for the sake of anyone who feels a need for another razor. If there's enough interest in conversion to some other system in particular, somebody will post methods.

Then get down to the "razor blade" business of producing finely honed setting material.

Just heard that FFG is going to release the ANDRIOD setting ( the background for the new version of the Netrunner LCG and a couple other games ) as a system less setting book.

I think the new answer to the thread's question is "everybody that catapulted "Tekumel: Sword and Glory 1" to 7th place on Drivethru".

Quote from: AsenRG;861708I think the new answer to the thread's question is "everybody that catapulted "Tekumel: Sword and Glory 1" to 7th place on Drivethru".

Wow, really? Despite my current sig, I actually like the book; and the S&G system (actually incomplete, but I guess Gardasiyal was basically a completion and refinement) was too cumbersome for my taste.

Some of the information in the player's book could be nice to have, though; I've used it in conjunction with EPT.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;832223I never understood why systemless setting books never caught on. It certainly beats the "system retread" every RPG ends up doing, and keeps the central narrative unified between several different authors.

My own theory is it's because Harn is more or less the exemplar of systemless setting books, and that shit's expensive.

One stall to systemless books is that, well, they ARE systemless. There is a slightly narrow window of players and especially DMs who like these.

And as mentioned previously. I think another problem is that a systemless book means the onus of conversion is on the GM. Even with some guidelines it can be a hassle.

Quote from: Momotaro;835915On the subject of art + text - I'd love love LOVE to see an RPGsetting/culture guide in the style of a Dorling Kindersley book

Something I would like to do with my own setting books for 'Fortunes Wheel' (the system I have been using and am trying to get funded on kickstarter) is to have some of the setting material available as mock place guides - the sort of things you get from tourist information centres or an attraction itself. The setting is a seemingly idyllic but actually rather dangerous slice of England that has been hidden away from the world in a sort of fold in space and time that people occasionally stray into (and other people live in everyday). It gives me plenty of room to create local history pamphlets, guide books for historic homes and churches, flyers for local places to visit. The sort of things you get when you visit a place on holiday but just stick in a drawer and forget you have (which is exactly what happens with the people who do visit them in the game, they just have this vague recollection of the place they file away mentally).

DK style would probably work rather well.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1613337354/fortunes-wheel

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;856425On the other hand, Thieves World was an extremely successful system-agnostic setting product. What did it have going for it?

* a successful set of fiction novels behind it by a decent author (Aspirin I think?)
* high production values (though maybe not by today's standards)
* boxed set with big maps
* plotlines and NPCs that you wanted to interact with
* notes for conversion to major systems of the period

Or gaming group played Thieves World to death. Loved it.
I think you have nailed what made it work (though the successful novels were an extra to us - quite frankly I don't think any of us bothered with them at all). It was the utility of it that counted.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;856596I'll buy a systemless setting over an RPG that comes with a setting I like any day.

I would buy a systemless Space: 1889 right now if there was one. Is there one? Some would argue that the first Space:1889 RPG had useless rules in it. So maybe it almost counts as systemless.

lol - which introduces the idea of not using a games system and using another one instead it.

Our game group got fed up with the system for the Dresden Files game - loved the books generally, but the system just failed to stick in our groups memory or make much real practical sense - we kept on getting bogged down trying to find rules in the game books and not finding them even though we knew there was one or having to stop and work out how the bloody thing actually worked again - so we ditched it and used our own.