The seeds of this thread have been simmering in my brain matter for a while now. We all dream about finding the Perfect RPG Ruleset. Perhaps we wouldn't say it just like that; but that's really the motivation for our purchases, our house rules, etc. We always want better. What we have now may be really good, but we still always want better.
If a company ever releases Perfect RPG 1.0; why would anyone ever upgrade to Perfect RPG 2.0, or even Perfect RPG 1.5?
Said company would have to bet their future success upon supporting Perfect RPG 1.0 FOREVER.............
Comments Are Welcome and Encouraged.
Taste is too individual. For some the perfect RPG has already been created and they are happily playing it forever. For others, there are too many things to try. No matter how good a given RPG is, people so inclined can believe that it's possible that something is even better.
Quote from: Razor 007;1057455The seeds of this thread have been simmering in my brain matter for a while now. We all dream about finding the Perfect RPG Ruleset. Perhaps we wouldn't say it just like that; but that's really the motivation for our purchases, our house rules, etc. We always want better. What we have now may be really good, but we still always want better.
If a company ever releases Perfect RPG 1.0; why would anyone ever upgrade to Perfect RPG 2.0, or even Perfect RPG 1.5?
Said company would have to bet their future success upon supporting Perfect RPG 1.0 FOREVER.............
Comments Are Welcome and Encouraged.
This is a mindset that has killed and is killing many an RPG. That you MUST MUST MUST force the players to re-re-re-re-re-re-mutherfucking-re-by the game over and over and over ad nausium infinitum.
It fails. EVERY TIME.
Gygax summed it up best. Ecery time you put out a new edition you lose upwards of 50% of yous customers. This is not the case if the new edition is mostly cosmetic or the changes are not too many. Example AD&D to 2e. Or OD&D to B to BX to BECMI to RC. But the more you change the more you lose. and this is usually a loss you are not going to recover.
So you come out with 2nd ed and its different enough you lose 25% of your customers. But hey you gained 15% new customers. Now you are at 90%, Then you lose 25% more with 3e, but at least make back another 15% new, leaving you at 80% and so on. Or to put it differently. Say you had 100k fans to start. By 2nd ed you have 86k left, 3rd ed has you at 74k, then 64k at 4th ed, then 55k at 5th ed, then 47k at 6th ed, 41k at 7th ed, 35k at 8th ed.
And far worse if each edition is very different. Say you lost 50% but somehow gained back 30%. By 2nd ed you are down to 65k customers, then 42k left with 3e.
The reason why is that the players you lost are now NOT supporting your game and are NOT drawing in new players. And most RPGs rely heavily on this.
Instead what you need to do is keep marketing the game regularly and getting new players to play it rather than stupidly trying to force a re-buy which pretty much everyone is getting sick of now aside from the few die hard "Cult of the New" loons, or the "cattle" players who will buy a new edition to "support" the publisher.
Quote from: Razor 007;1057455The seeds of this thread have been simmering in my brain matter for a while now. We all dream about finding the Perfect RPG Ruleset. Perhaps we wouldn't say it just like that; but that's really the motivation for our purchases, our house rules, etc. We always want better. What we have now may be really good, but we still always want better.
If a company ever releases Perfect RPG 1.0; why would anyone ever upgrade to Perfect RPG 2.0, or even Perfect RPG 1.5?
Said company would have to bet their future success upon supporting Perfect RPG 1.0 FOREVER.............
Comments Are Welcome and Encouraged.
I do not believe that there is a "perfect" RPG, but I do believe that there is a "damn good at what I want it to do" RPG and I have a few of them. Traveller /Cepheus Engine for literary or hard science fiction. d6 Star Wars for science fantasy. Mekton for anime mecha, Cyberpunk for well, cyberpunk. Note that a good portion of these are no longer in print, so I don't have to worry about the edition treadmill.
Quote from: jeff37923;1057470I do not believe that there is a "perfect" RPG, but I do believe that there is a "damn good at what I want it to do" RPG and I have a few of them. Traveller /Cepheus Engine for literary or hard science fiction. d6 Star Wars for science fantasy. Mekton for anime mecha, Cyberpunk for well, cyberpunk. Note that a good portion of these are no longer in print, so I don't have to worry about the edition treadmill.
I LOVE Mekton, especially Mekton Zeta. IMO, that was the pinnacle of the Interlock system, especially if you had Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. and used the conversion/compatibility rule in Mekton Zeta Plus. Thread crossover alert (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?39579-Your-most-repurposed-RPG-system): Mekton Zeta is, under the hood, a wonderfully repurposeable gaming engine. The only "missing piece" is one that doesn't fit the anime mecha roots of the game: strategic warfare and realm management.
Back on topic: No, Mekton Zeta is not a "perfect" RPG. I *could* run damn near anything with it (to the best of my admittedly limited GMing abilities), but the work done to adapt it would vary greatly depending on what I was trying to run. OTOH, if you want a Star Wars/Star Trek/Babylon 5/Battlestar Galactica/etc. themed mash-up? Mekton Zeta is your game.
Savage Worlds isn't the perfect RPG, but it is good and they set themselves up for minor edition updates instead of radical changes.
A Savage Worlds game feels very different depending on the combo of books you are using. My Nova Praxis game is going to feel very different than my Flash Gordon game. This allows for very high longevity and the total content only increases because backwards compatibility remains high.
An alleged perfect RPG could go on forever with that model.
Unlike GURPS 4e which jams so much in the basic books, and has very comprehensive generic supplements that eventually they will just run out of things to make and people already complained about rules bloat in the basic set let alone now.
There's no perfect for everyone, since we all have different tastes.
But there are certainly games that are close, as seen by all the people who keep playing one game. For me it's GURPS, for some it's TFT, for several people here 0D&D, etc.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1057503Unlike GURPS 4e which jams so much in the basic books, and has very comprehensive generic supplements that eventually they will just run out of things to make and people already complained about rules bloat in the basic set let alone now.
Yeah the 4e Basic Set supports so many settings/genres/playstyles (and tries to make a universal system for rating all of them "fairly" in terms of point value) that it should be called a "campaign toolkit" rather than a "basic" set. Even I find it way too full of stuff for other genres I'll never use. But for many of the players who one way or another managed to learn and appreciate GURPS, it is a nearly-perfect system. And yes, it is father full of decades of world books and Pyramid articles and expansions and so on, which does make it not something it would make sense to crank versions on to try to re-sell to everyone, though there are opportunities to sell condensed/focused versions (like their "Powered by GURPS" games), and they could do a better version of that, both by making them lower-point-total with more readable character sheets, and about more popular/interesting topics.
While I am trying to create the best game I possibly can, I am under no illusions that the end result will be "perfect." That said, there may come a point where the weight of errata and well-regarded options from outside the core will warrant a new edition that includes them.
That's what "edition" actually means outside of the RPG industry; a new printing with errata, maybe a new foreword or afterword, some new artwork perhaps. For a textbook or technical guide you'd want to supply the latest information available and probably update your examples, but the main info isn't likely to change much.
* * * * *
I also fully endorse Mekton Zeta as a fantastic sci-fi game engine. I haven't played it in years, but since someone mentioned their absence I thought I'd point out they did actually have mass combat rules in one the supplements (Tactical Display I think had smaller scale where individual mecha still mattered, and another; maybe Starblade Battalion; where they had the full-on anime capital ships beyond counting filling the sky where entire fleets need to be accounted for and are lost as single units and nothing short of Voltron:Legendary Defender level god-mecha would matter).
I find the standards of RPG publishing bad enough that perfection isn't even close to a danger. Particularly first editions - even from major companies - regularly have blatant editing errors where the rules just don't make sense - and more where there is a clearly better way to do things. These often persist to later editions, or are replaced by new flaws. (Particularly overcomplication tailored to the die-hard fans.)
I don't think these are deliberate for the most part. I think there is a low standard of playtesting and editing, for the most part.
Quote from: Chris24601;1057515I also fully endorse Mekton Zeta as a fantastic sci-fi game engine. I haven't played it in years, but since someone mentioned their absence I thought I'd point out they did actually have mass combat rules in one the supplements (Tactical Display I think had smaller scale where individual mecha still mattered, and another; maybe Starblade Battalion; where they had the full-on anime capital ships beyond counting filling the sky where entire fleets need to be accounted for and are lost as single units and nothing short of Voltron:Legendary Defender level god-mecha would matter).
Mass combat rules, definitely. Good ones that tie in excellently with the scaling rules, like you described.
Strategic war rules and realm management? Not at all. Since those things aren't definitive elements of the anime mecha genre, it's an acceptable omission. If you want them in your Mekton Zeta-based sci-fi game, you'll need to create them, or adapt them from elsewhere.
I think the idea of a "perfect ruleset" is kind of an off-kilter way of looking at RPGs. For myself, I go after new systems and write new systems in order to fall in love with a new way of looking at and interacting with a universe, not for a platoinc notion of perfection. It's like meeting new people - you could fall in love with them, and have a fantastic life experience. You're not really expecting, and wouldn't really want to meet someone "perfect".
//Panjumanju
Never will exist for me. I want different things at different times and while I have some favorites, no single game system will ever satisfy me. Sure there will occasionally be a need to tweak a rule here or there between editions, but these days new edition often = almost a whole new game.
Quote from: Skarg;1057508Yeah the 4e Basic Set supports so many settings/genres/playstyles (and tries to make a universal system for rating all of them "fairly" in terms of point value) that it should be called a "campaign toolkit" rather than a "basic" set. Even I find it way too full of stuff for other genres I'll never use. But for many of the players who one way or another managed to learn and appreciate GURPS, it is a nearly-perfect system. And yes, it is father full of decades of world books and Pyramid articles and expansions and so on, which does make it not something it would make sense to crank versions on to try to re-sell to everyone, though there are opportunities to sell condensed/focused versions (like their "Powered by GURPS" games), and they could do a better version of that, both by making them lower-point-total with more readable character sheets, and about more popular/interesting topics.
I think you have just hit on why I can't get into 4th ed, I hadn't even figured that out for myself. 3rd ed had a fairly universal core, but it remained relatively basic (essentially low fantasy / modern mundane) so it was fairly easy to get my head around the system. Genre books added extra bits needed to play those genres. Then came the compendiums that gathered all of the misc rule additions into one place. Even knowing the basic rules fairly well, I have never been able to fully wrap my head around 4th ed.
Most of the current crop of "universal" games seem to suffer from this to some extent.
I think the idiosyncratic nature of "perfect" here is probably demonstrated by looking at the kind of loop or circuit most RPG play goes through many times in a single session of play:
1) Referee describes a situation
2) Players describe what their characters do
3) The system is used to resolve the described actions
4) Go to 1 and Referee describes the new resultant description
There are probably almost as many ways that a given RPG can handle step 3 as there are gaming groups. The system will also impact both what kinds of things are on offer to be described by the referee in step 1 and the kinds of things players describe doing in step 2. Different systems will encourage a different basis for the decisions made in step 2. Rules light systems will have the players more likely to base their decisions on the fictional content described in step 1 while more rules heavy systems might have players making decisions almost entirely on the statistical capabilities of their characters. Also, step 3 in some games might chug along for a while with results that just refer to more mechanics. Some combat systems go a long, long time between times things refer back to description in natural language.
I've run both a ton of an OD&D mashup with the system 100% behind the referee's screen where the players have nothing but the fictional description on which to base decisions. I've also run 3E through Pathfinder in a variety of styles. I've run a ton of 4E D&D where in many ways the fictional content is just window dressing for a miniature combat system. The position and appearance of miniatures or tokens and the images printed on dungeon tiles and battle maps often make description within combat superfluous entirely. And in many cases when a player attempts to force in description every time they do an action, the other people at the table get impatient. Wait times are long enough without someone describing something when it pretty much can never (maybe only rarely) have any impact on the outcome of the system.
I've also run a ton of story games where the circuit of description is bent or broken entirely. I believe most of these depart from the core activity of an RPG as much or more than 4E D&D. Many people want an RPG that gets as close to that as possible without actually going so far as to break the core activity of description of situations and responses with a single GM/Referee who runs the world and players who run individual characters.
Would you really be equally happy playing at a game where you didn't have any stats on your character sheet and I just described everything as you would playing Pathfinder with tons of skills, feats, special abilities and pretty much everything defined in system terms including figuring out how far a given attempt at jumping takes you in feet? Each of us probably falls in the middle somewhere. And likely the people sitting down at given table probably don't all agree despite the fact they are playing the same game.
Quote from: Omega;1057465This is a mindset that has killed and is killing many an RPG. That you MUST MUST MUST force the players to re-re-re-re-re-re-mutherfucking-re-by the game over and over and over ad nausium infinitum.
It fails. EVERY TIME.
It's also about people acting against their own interests. There are definitely people who think their hobby is playing RPGs but their actual hobby is being sold RPGs. I have a friend who is always going in on the latest RPG Kickstarter, always talking about the latest book he got. He plays once a month for 3 hours and is never happy with his gaming. There's always some new version or some other rules set that he thinks he could or should be running. The only thing that he's actually getting enjoyment out of is thinking about how good things might be and when he buys a new product.
The problem with getting customers into this situation through marketing them the next new thing is that everyone can market them this next new thing and they don't actually have time to play it all so there's no stickiness to a given game. And it sucks to have a GM running a game where they think everything would be better if they'd just be running this other game he's excited about.
Pendragon is the perfect ruleset.
Of course what it's perfect at is being Pendragon. Which doesn't help if you want to play something else.
Quote from: NathanIW;1057554He plays once a month for 3 hours and is never happy with his gaming. There's always some new version or some other rules set that he thinks he could or should be running. The only thing that he's actually getting enjoyment out of is thinking about how good things might be and when he buys a new product.
That's not limited to roleplaying games, that's just ordinary old consumerism.
It definitely is. It's a perfect recipe for being the architect of one's own misery.
In the case of the perfect RPG, I think we can safely defer blowing up that bridge until we come to it.
The only perfect RPG will be the one you write for yourself. But even then, it will only be temporary. Enjoy it while you can!
I try to make every RPG of mine be good enough to only ever require 1 edition.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1057891I try to make every RPG of mine be good enough to only ever require 1 edition.
That's kinda my goal. At the same time there were several classes and species that I'd started out with that I ended up dropping into the 'stretch goals' then to 'put it in a supplement' because the amount of time it would take to fix them would greatly delay my primary product from getting out. Provided the game does well, those will definitely see the light of day in one of the 'world' books (more like 'here's a point of civilization and all the problems/adventure sites surrounding it' books, but world book is pithier), but they'd only be 2-3 pages out of a 100+ page book.
I could see in say, ten years, going back and doing an "ultimate edition" that adds all those options into the core book for those who want them all in one place. Its kinda funny and the opposite of what some might expect, but its my older players, the 40-50-somethings who like having all their books as PDFs. Every 20-30-something I've run games with has expressed a preference for physical books so them not having to lug around half a dozen books, some of which are only having a couple of pages referenced, would likely be an advantage they'd be willing to pay for.
The same goes for monsters; I've got just over 200 opponents in the core and plan on putting 1-2 dozen or so unique to each location in the supplements. In ten years that could easily be another 200 monsters and worth compiling into an "ultimate monsters" book.
But that's not a new edition in the D&D sense; that's just a reorganization of the existing content into something that puts things that people might be looking for all in one place. You don't NEED to buy them to play the game, but you might WANT to because its easier to flip through one book than a couple dozen (most of which are sandbox adventure site books).
The proliferation of rules systems has been the achilles heel of the hobby since at least the early 80's, and is now basically a mass mental illness.
Quote from: Larsdangly;1057908The proliferation of rules systems has been the achilles heel of the hobby since at least the early 80's, and is now basically a mass mental illness.
Yes, and we only ever needed the Model-T to drive around in and playing cards should only ever be used to play Solitaire. Its a mass mental illness if you want to drive something individual to you or play different games using the playing cards. [/sarcasm]
You seem to suggest that there exists one platonic ideal RPG system that can run all settings and genres equally well and is both simultaneously rules light with heavy crunch, creates simple characters yet provides tons of customization options. No such game exists and thinking one possibly could cover every such need borders on insanity of a different sort.
People want different things out of their games and if universal systems were the answer GURPS or HERO would be at the top of the market instead of small niche audiences.
Some people even want different things out of different games they play. I want Battletech to not feel like AD&D and neither of those to feel like FASERIP (i.e. 1980s Marvel Super Heroes RPG). Even in the giant robot genre sometimes I'm looking for Battletech's "anyone can die" combat system, other times I'm looking for the anime inspired feel of Mekton.
Sticking to one RPG system is like only reading hard sci-fi novels for entertainment... you could do it, but there's so much more you're missing out on.
Quote from: Chris24601;1057925...You seem to suggest that there exists one platonic ideal RPG system that can run all settings and genres equally well and is both simultaneously rules light with heavy crunch, creates simple characters yet provides tons of customization options...
I advocate such a thing is possible and I tend to prefer RPGs that seem to be striving for that rather than ones that think complexity vs comprehensiveness is a zero sum game.
And yeah, a Generic system like Savage Worlds is my preferred RPG. It's both general and specific. It's not the perfect RPG by far, but I think the devs are still trying which leads to some neat solutions and rules.
Quote from: Chris24601;1057925You seem to suggest that there exists one platonic ideal RPG system
[...]
Sticking to one RPG system is like [...]
It simply does not follow that pointing out there are too many rules means that the correct number to have is one. That makes no sense.
I had a friend who thought Pendragon would be good for emulating Pokemon.
hte Knights would be pokemon, and the ladies, their trainers
Quote from: remial;1057954I had a friend who thought Pendragon would be good for emulating Pokemon.
hte Knights would be pokemon, and the ladies, their trainers
Your friend is right. ;)
Quote from: NathanIW;1057935It simply does not follow that pointing out there are too many rules means that the correct number to have is one. That makes no sense.
Whether he meant one or two dozen is irrelevant. His claim is that there are enough game systems already in existence that to try and build another one is to be insane.
My point was that people's tastes are too diverse for that statement to ever be true.
If there was a ruleset out there that actually delivered what I wanted for my fantasy games (and believe me, I've looked), I wouldn't have spent all this time writing my own system (4E D&D came close with its focus on transparent mechanics, tight monster math that made it easy for DMs to judge the difficulty of what they were throwing at the PCs, interesting martial characters with explicit mechanics and martial/caster parity, but it was also too weighed down by reliance on storygame elements, scaling issues and combat/non-combat options fighting for the same design space for me to be truly satisfied by it).
I think you're reading stuff into his statement that isn't there. Maybe he'll elaborate.
The mechanics of a RPG encompasses a simulation of a given genre or setting. Since the only thing that can simulate the universe is the universe itself due to the butterfly effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect) anything smaller has to pick and choose what elements to emphasize. Especially a simulation designed to fit within the confines of a book or series of book.
The consequence of this is that there a huge variety in what could be designed to allow players to make characters that can interact with a setting with their actions adjudicated by a human referee. Even when narrowed to a specific genre for a specific setting.
So no there never will be too many RPGs. Nor there will ever be the perfect RPG in the sense of the OP. Rather the perfect RPG is one where the presentation, design of the mechanics, and included advice mesh in a way that it is entertaining, informative, useful, and follow through on what the author wants to focus on. There can be more than one perfect RPG existing at the same time.
Rob's Note: I use simulation not as a play style but rather in it's literal definition, a reproduction of the behavior of a system. The system being reproduced is whatever elements of a genre or setting the author want to focus on. Like combat, or social interaction.
Imagine if an automotive company sold an automobile that would last forever. They'd sell like hotcakes at first, and then new sales would taper off over time; but never fall to zero, due to population growth. The company would have to base their long term growth upon offering value-added customization options for their base / core product. It would be the same scenario for an RPG creator / publisher, if they released a perfect RPG rule set.
Quote from: Razor 007;1058072Imagine if an automotive company sold an automobile that would last forever. They'd sell like hotcakes at first, and then new sales would taper off over time; but never fall to zero, due to population growth. The company would have to base their long term growth upon offering value-added customization options for their base / core product. It would be the same scenario for an RPG creator / publisher, if they released a perfect RPG rule set.
Another analogy.
If everyone has unlimited free Perfect hamburgers, you can still make money selling toppings and buns.
Quote from: NathanIW;10575531) Referee describes a situation
2) Players describe what their characters do
3) The system is used to resolve the described actions
4) Go to 1 and Referee describes the new resultant description
Thank you NathanIW! To me, that succinct cycle represents perfection in a RPG.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1058080Thank you NathanIW! To me, that succinct cycle represents perfection in a RPG.
That's been my RPG mantra for a while now.
I would actually amend 3 to say "3) The referee uses the system to resolve the described actions."
I also find it a great way to review rules to see if they'll do what I want. As soon as system refers to system rather than back to description, I'm not interested as playing it as an RPG. And as soon as players are making decisions based on the system rather than the description, I'm also not interested.
That said, I did enjoy running loads of 4E D&D as a miniature wargame with some RPG elements tacked on. Like Gorkamorka or Mordheim but with less miniatures per person.
Having many different rule-sets is different than having many different editions.