The Elder Scrolls has a unique cosmology and metaphysics. You can read it all in the wiki, just look up 'the elder scrolls cosmology'. There are other worlds as unique as it in terms of metaphysics and cosmology.

So, my question is, do worlds like those need unique, custom-crafted systems made for them? If you think they do, why, and if you think they don't, why not?

Of course a custom system is always going to get you a nearer match to a given  setting than a generic one, but do you need it? Depends case by case.

Elder Scrolls is one where I would say the answer is no. However unique the cosmology may be, the day to day experience of Tamriel (based on the games) is not all that different from what you'd get in any high fantasy RPG. You'd probably want a skill-based system with non-vancian magic, so I'd go with something like Savage Worlds or Mythras Classic Fantasy, depending on which of the TES games you most want to emulate.

This is largely the case with most high fantasy properties (Dragon Quest, Kingdoms of Amalur, Fable, Dragon Age etc.) Whatever the unique metaphysics or aesthetics are, the end product still produces a very similar world of knights, wizards, thieves, and (often) fantasy races, and the differences get relegated to the background fluff and cosmetics.

By contrast, in something like Dark Souls, the whole fire/dark/hollowing/stagnant time/curse of the undead situation is omnipresent in the setting, and you'd have to have a system to model it, if you wanted even a hope of faithfully running the setting. You could probably make a similar argument for Final Fantasy VII, with the lifestream/mako/materia dynamic.

Some games are unique enough to warrant a new ruleset. The Elder Scrolls is really unique in that it allows anyone to use magic, but I don't think it needs its own system. Like ForgottenF said, I think most settings are unique in flavor but don't need their own rules, just modifications to an existing ruleset to get them to work.

Quote from: 1stLevelWizard on April 21, 2024, 10:03:44 AMThe Elder Scrolls is really unique in that it allows anyone to use magic,

So unique that Runequest has "everybody and their dog can use magic" as a central feature since the seventies (meaning: the concept of "free magic" has been part of RPG space since the beginning), and a fuckton of other games (both tabletop and videogames) share the sentiment.
It's usually only class based games that restrict magic behind arbitrary barriers.

Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on April 21, 2024, 11:28:45 AM

Quote from: 1stLevelWizard on April 21, 2024, 10:03:44 AMThe Elder Scrolls is really unique in that it allows anyone to use magic,

So unique that Runequest has "everybody and their dog can use magic" as a central feature since the seventies (meaning: the concept of "free magic" has been part of RPG space since the beginning), and a fuckton of other games (both tabletop and videogames) share the sentiment.
It's usually only class based games that restrict magic behind arbitrary barriers.

Well, admittedly I haven't played any classeless games so I didn't know that. I still hold to it that Elder Scrolls doesn't need a unique system to the setting.

The Elder Scrolls gameworld was literally developed by the original designers/programmers playing AD&D 2e

Dark Souls would need a custom system to do it justice because the "Hollowing as a metaphor for the player quitting the game" metaphor is unique to Dark Souls. I actually can't think of a good way to embed this into a TTRPG, which makes me think the definitive version of Dark Souls will forever remain the video game, even if someone does manage to make a TTRPG out of it. It is a work of art which uses the video game medium as a choice.

None of that is true of Elder Scrolls.


Elder Scrolls has a mountain of lore, but to be honest...I think most of that lore is ho-hum at best. The best thing about the setting is that the Khajiit and Argonians are relatively novel races given the high fantasy backdrop. The magic system is merely OK, and the pantheon is a straight-up hot mess. I don't see anything in Elder Scrolls which has enough creative clarity to warrant a custom system. It might be better than "high fantasy as written by Chat-GPT" but it is certainly closer to that than literally any Final Fantasy game (including most of the spinoffs.) You can comfortably run Elder Scrolls with pretty much any generic system there is (and I think there's a fan-made Savage Worlds module for it.) However, if you tried to do that with Final Fantasy VIII, the system would crash.

Believe me; I tried. Way the heck back in my high school days I tried to make a Final Fantasy VIII conversion in GURPS and watched as the system broke down crying because GURPS doesn't have a clue how to handle junctioning.

Quote from: Fheredin on April 22, 2024, 04:27:28 PMDark Souls would need a custom system to do it justice because the "Hollowing as a metaphor for the player quitting the game" metaphor is unique to Dark Souls. I actually can't think of a good way to embed this into a TTRPG, which makes me think the definitive version of Dark Souls will forever remain the video game, even if someone does manage to make a TTRPG out of it. It is a work of art which uses the video game medium as a choice.

I've put a bit of thought into this, albeit without coming up with a satisfying solution. Because of the way Hollowing affects NPCs and the general themes of the game, I think you can fairly interpret it that Hollowing sets in when you lose your sense of purpose. The difficulty then becomes coming up with a "purpose" mechanic. Just spit-balling, but one way might be to require players to assign a grand goal to their character, and deduct Humanity points when they suffer a significant setback. That unfortunately smacks a bit too much of story game mechanics and DM fiat, though. You could also introduce some kind of "Hollowing Save", based on a willpower-like stat, which occurs whenever they die. That'd be more workable and fair, but loses a lot of the thematic purpose of hollowing.


So yeah, you're probably right. It's a mechanic which serves videogames much better than any other medium.

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 22, 2024, 08:49:42 PM

Quote from: Fheredin on April 22, 2024, 04:27:28 PMDark Souls would need a custom system to do it justice because the "Hollowing as a metaphor for the player quitting the game" metaphor is unique to Dark Souls. I actually can't think of a good way to embed this into a TTRPG, which makes me think the definitive version of Dark Souls will forever remain the video game, even if someone does manage to make a TTRPG out of it. It is a work of art which uses the video game medium as a choice.

I've put a bit of thought into this, albeit without coming up with a satisfying solution. Because of the way Hollowing affects NPCs and the general themes of the game, I think you can fairly interpret it that Hollowing sets in when you lose your sense of purpose. The difficulty then becomes coming up with a "purpose" mechanic. Just spit-balling, but one way might be to require players to assign a grand goal to their character, and deduct Humanity points when they suffer a significant setback. That unfortunately smacks a bit too much of story game mechanics and DM fiat, though. You could also introduce some kind of "Hollowing Save", based on a willpower-like stat, which occurs whenever they die. That'd be more workable and fair, but loses a lot of the thematic purpose of hollowing.


So yeah, you're probably right. It's a mechanic which serves videogames much better than any other medium.

There's a difference between a storygame and an RPG set in a universe where literary tropes have actual power (see any of Sir Terry Pratchett's masterpieces).

In a story game the players would spend plot points to make various outcomes occur and perhaps justify what they want with a trope reference.

In Discworld, the party tries to do things like stand on one foot while shooting your bow with your offhand while counting up in prime numbers because they know, according to the laws of their universe, that "million-to-one shots always succeed" (but they have to be precisely a million-to-one or you're screwed).

A fantasy setting where one must have a purpose or suffer Hollowing and getting points of Hollowing that eat away at them when their purpose is thwarted isn't storygame, its the opposite... its converting a literary trope into an objective force in the setting, no different than having falling damage because of the objective force of gravity.