In our endless (and fun!) discussions about TRPG's... something we don't discuss enough of is "scale".

What I mean by this is "power-levels" based on these criteria:

What is acceptable to you as a GM/Player?

How much does genre matter?

How important is system in this regard?


For me - I think this really is where the rubber hits the road in terms of "system importance". I've seen a lot of discussion about "The Game Is Not the System" - which I generally agree. But I also think a lot of settings fall short due to the lack of scale due to the system. Palladium is a good example of this. While I love Palladium, the system is so overwrought it's been begging for a more dynamic system to encompass the scale of power the setting demands, for YEARS (if not decades). My rule of thumb - or rather my holy grail thus far, is a system that can run normal folks to supers, and fit in any genre.

Now I know it's silly because many systems do just fine exemplifying a setting (and perhaps a whole genre) without the need for scaling. But I'm asking because I believe there are more settings that do the exact opposite. They promise high-scaled gameplay, but the system is a shit-show in delivering (lookin at you WoD, Exalted).

So I'm curious to know what you all think? Is it even important in how you approach certain games as a GM or player?

This is only a problem in simulationist systems.  No, a single soldier with a rifle shouldn't be able to take on Godzilla.  Don't even roll.

If you're looking to emulate genres of fiction where that can happen, the only challenge is coming up with the improbable explanations for why Certain Doom is not, in fact, Certain Doom.

Pulp adventure novels, cliffhanger serials, superhero comics are all examples.

What is acceptable to you as a GM/Player?

Whatever the setting allows.  PERSONALLY, I prefer to run pulp to superheroic, but I can play anything as long as it does the job on the tin.

How much does genre matter?

It matters a lot to me.  It sets up expectations, desires and the preferred outcome.

How important is system in this regard?

It has to at least facilitate it's intended ideals.

For example, if I'm running/playing something in Savage Worlds, I'm expecting something like a low level Wuxia, or the Diehard series of films, where the main heroes can handle several foes in a vaguely swashbuckley style, with little regard for realism, but a good gun shot will still put the player done, and permanently.

If I'm running Champions or Mutants and Masterminds, I expect heroes to be able to do even greater things, lifting cars, stopping bullets with their foreheads, uprooting trees.

In Call of Cthulu?  I expect outcomes that are reasonable to my expectations of how the real world works, meaning a stair fall could do some serious damage and even kill me.  Something I wouldn't believe in if I were running/playing a pulp/supers game.

So far, there's only been one game and setting that created that dissonance.  And that was Eberron and 3rd Edition D&D.

Now, this is not me bashing, yet again, on D&D 3rd, but rather why I personally think that it didn't fit what they claimed they were going for in Eberron.  

In the core book of Eberron there were various fiction pieces (yes, yes, I know) that played up the mentioned Pulp aspect (which was one of the design choices listed by Mr. Baker) for the setting.  And in my personal experience, Pulp style games have minion rules.  The random lesser shlubs that in large numbers can threaten a 'hero' (And by large numbers in a Pulpy story is more than 3-5 depending on the hero), but third edition D&D is about the party, and focus firing on one target, putting it down, going to another and repeating.  Very rarely would a single character, and class, could handle two or more at once.  Which is the biggest issue, a Wizard, Fighter, Rogue or Cleric (and any other class) can't 'solo' a single target in 3e, because the game isn't designed to.

Which is perfectly fine in general, but not for Eberron's conceits, where leaping from air boat to air boat, chasing down a foe, while one shotting the various goons that try and stop you, is pretty much the type of game the art, the stories and the assumptions want the players to do.  At least to me and my experience with D&D 3e's base system.

Personally, I think that Savage Worlds would have worked so much better for Eberron.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

It's complicated for me.

I'm personally a huge fan of escalating scale. There's something satisfying to me about narratives where the heroes start out as incompetent cave-dwelling children and work their way up to hurling galaxies like shurikens.

I'm also a huge fan of genre transgression. My favorite works of fiction are all fusions of two or more genres, or old prototypical genre stories that predate the genres they are associated with. I can't stand genre distillation; it lends itself to creative inbreeding.

Let's talk about superheroes for a moment. We take that as a distinct genre in and of itself, but it's really more of a bridge between multiple genres.
Teen drama + science fiction/bio-thriller = Spider-Man
Noire + detective story + martial arts = Bat-Man
WWII + spy thriller + science fiction = Captain America
And these kinds of stories absolutely do feature an escalation in scale. The whole point of these stories is a zero to hero narrative:
1) Story starts with the protagonist of a genre dealing with the problems of their genre with only the tools of that genre
2) Then the protagonist gains the tools of a different genre and becomes sort of an out-of-context threat
3) Then a villain from that other genre shows up and the whole world starts to warp around that genre
4) More villains show up (often as incursions from more genres still) and eventually the hero has to team up with other genre-transgressive heroes to stop some multiverse-shattering apocalyptic event

Now, I have never played Rifts (though I have the Robotech book, and tried to get a TMNT: and Other Strangeness game going online) but I have no problem imagining it as a story about vagabonds and rogue scholars fighting for survival in a post-apocalyptic world and balloons out into a story about giant robots punching dragons in half.

Quote from: daniel_ream;914183This is only a problem in simulationist systems.  No, a single soldier with a rifle shouldn't be able to take on Godzilla.  Don't even roll.

If you're looking to emulate genres of fiction where that can happen, the only challenge is coming up with the improbable explanations for why Certain Doom is not, in fact, Certain Doom.

Pulp adventure novels, cliffhanger serials, superhero comics are all examples.

I was thinking of FASERIP (and it's spiritual children - ICONS, BASH etc) as an example of a system that scales incredibly well, and despite the genre it was intended to be used for, actually works quite well for any other genre. I can do FASERIP fantasy/sci-fi/etc. simply by limiting the parameters of the ranks within the system. I have to change *nothing* mechanically.

 If I'm reading your example right - you're saying scalability is directly proportionate to the implied parameters of a system? I think my example of FASERIP stands as a good example that doesn't require any of the things you mention. It's certainly not simulationist, it's got plenty of abstraction, it doesn't require any kind of challenge to explain improbable explanations to avoid Certain Doom either. Godzilla steps on you - you're a normal soldier - you're gonna die if you don't evade. Evasion is pretty straightforward as a basic combat mechanic. Same if Godzilla decides to flamebreath a city block. I'm not saying it would be *easy* I'm saying it's a basic mechanic to make the attempt.

But that's a good example of what I'm getting at - it seems we're talking about degrees of "simulationism" as some rigid axiom of scale -when as I pointed out, there are good examples of where its not. I might include Savage Worlds in there too. But it doesn't scale quite as well as the FASERIP family.

Quote from: tenbones;914152What is acceptable to you as a GM/Player?

Pretty much anything is acceptable to me, but I tend to prefer to hang out on the lower-powered end of things.  Say "starting WFRP1 characters" up to "Conan (the Howard version, not the Schwarzenegger version)" or thereabouts.  Advanced WFRP1 characters are already starting to get out of my ideal range, but I've also happily run Tenra Bansho Zero and would like to give Godbound a try (even though Exalted has never interested me in the least).

One thing I really dislike is rapid zero-to-hero scaling.  Characters should generally increase in power somewhat as a campaign progresses, but I don't like it when something which could casually TPK the PCs at the start of the game isn't even a minor speed bump as they steamroll over it a couple dozen sessions later.

Quote from: tenbones;914152How much does genre matter?

Power level seems to be a substantial component of genre, so it seems to me that they're inextricably intertwined.

Quote from: tenbones;914152How important is system in this regard?

The system has to work reasonably well for the chosen power level, of course.  And then there's the zero-to-hero thing, which is baked pretty deeply into D&D-derived systems.  I'm not sure how significant it is to me (in this context) aside from those two factors; I tend to choose systems based on factors other than target power level.

Quote from: tenbones;914152They promise high-scaled gameplay, but the system is a shit-show in delivering (lookin at you WoD, Exalted).

I suspect that it's much harder to design a system that actually holds up at high power levels than one that works well at lower power levels, but I tend to ignore the high end for the most part, so I can't claim any authority on that.