System is usually designed to support genre and style, unless it is one of those Universal Systems like GURPS. Most fantasy games can't be played with a system designed to tell Honor Harrington stories.
When system is done right, it attracts and supports the kind of folks who love the genre. They play the game, they love the game, because it gives them the "feel" and "style" of the stories they enjoy.
System also affects the kind of players that are attracted to RPGs. That is, not all players are attracted to RPGs for the same reason... therefore, not all systems will be well-received, even if they "nail down" the genre because they can miss certain player appeal. A system that supports the widest range of player styles could also support a certain genre, or range of genres... but that is something I've never seen as yet.
Christopher Buchanan—president of Mutant Enemy, the production company behind UPN's Buffy, the Vampire Slayer—told SCI FI Wire that producers are considering a spinoff starring Eliza Dushku as the renegade Slayer Faith, but that no deals have been signed yet.
- Initial contact - picture on card begins to morph to current receiver; receiver usually asks for confirmation of caller; receiver is not open to mental contact; information is spoken
- full contact - initial contact accepted; both people see the other; both are in light mental contact; information is spoken
- mental contact - deep contact; physical actions may be restricted; both are mentally interlocked; information need not be spoken
From Q.E.D.:
In re: game mechanics vs. pure role playing, Harrumph. We Amber players just naturally go for Purity and invisible mechanics. Trust us in all things.
RPGShop.com : Amber DRPG
Amber Core Rules: Chronopolis the game rules continue to be available retail online
they are not out-of-print, no matter what your local store might think
Via Ginger :: which art movement are you? You should know something about this, it's the Renaissance! As for style, "...artists studied the natural world, perfecting their understanding of such subjects as anatomy and perspective." (artcyclopedia.com.) They loved science-y things and labored for perfection and harmonious beauty, a goal with which you sympathize. You're probably pretty smart, too. Anal-retentive much?
Famous Renaissancers (lots!): Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, Raphael, and You.
Death and 'What Happens Next' Probably it shouldn't surprise me that my feelings about the Columbia shuttle disaster have put me in mind to think about death and courage and 'what happens next.' The last because whether in life or in RPGs the story must go on. Always.
Just one of the themes that Zelazny "hooks me" with is permutations of immortality. Not the concept of immortality, but the execution. Zelazny twists the manifestations until immortality is a curse, a blessing, a responsibility, a lark, but always accessible to the reader. The characters believe and I, the reader, believe it. That's a good trick-- an essential trick-- and Zelazny's skill renders this very accessible.
Yet, as we've noted just recently, RPG games aren't about death, they are more properly about challenge, danger, and heroism. And, of course, 'what happens next.' (I'm not going to even try to explain the "Paranoia" RPG or if it fits this idea.)
In a strange way then, most RPGs are about not dying. If you die, the game is over.
Yet, in all of my games (YMMV), death is just a few ticks away, whether the characters are immortal princes of Amber, or short-lived humans. That makes it real to me. That makes everything the Characters do important. The drama of death drives me to care about 'what happens next'. That element of death makes me "worry" and "tense" as Characters risk the threats or challenges. Like watching a movie thriller for the first time, this particular GM doesn't know what is going to happen next, and it generates tension, drama, interest, and occasionally the contrast of the "human condition", such as humor, irony, and sadness.
If death isn't in the game, it isn't like life. If the game isn't like life, then I'm not sure what it is or should be.
Player Characters die in my games: not often, not easily, and usually not idly. In at least one case, a PC's unexpected death led directly to other Character actions and eventually spiralled the entire campaign to a conclusion.
How does Zelazny use death in the Amber series?
despite your heritage, a misstep on the Pattern will kill you; has done so before
elder sibs of Corwin et al who are long dead; nearly nameless myths
queens die, Oberon remarries
family in conflict; blood might have to kill blood
death curses; literal disaster lingering from death
characters avoid deadly confrontations if they can
death is change and transformation; the thirteenth Tarot
As I look at the above, it seems that Zelazny is doing the same thing I'm doing in the game: the drama of death drives me to care about 'what happens next.'
A few years ago, I was in Florida, driving up the east coast on highway A1A, which is as far east as you can get and not be in the Atlantic Ocean. It was night, and I was driving over a long bridge, when I saw something very beautiful in the sky. It started out like a streak of orange flame, and then, as it rose, it burned bluer and brighter than anything I'd ever seen -- the nursery rhyme line "like a diamond in the sky" suddenly had meaning, a huge, blazing, blue-white diamond of flame, and I pulled over to the side of the bridge and watched it rise and rise and rise; and realised I watching a space shuttle launch, one that had been delayed for days because of dodgy weather, and now it was launching and I was watching it, and I felt very proud to be part of something -- humanity, I suppose -- that had put that flaming diamond up there. And eventually it rose out of sight, and I drove north.
There are people dead now, and hurt, and pain, and questions. But I still feel proud to be part of the thing that made it.
From the Roll the Bones question-- several takes on dice as the arbitor of fate in gaming:
Blog, Jvstin Style So I don't let the dice undercut my decisions or the player choices, it reinforces them. I think that blindly following the dice's tyranny, to the point of character death, makes a fetish of the things, and it is less fun.
It Slices! It Dices!:Diced Vs. Diceless Vs. Death ...it is implied that death in diceless is a matter of GM whim, and death in diced games is a matter of random chance.
Trust as a component of gaming... and "murder" vs "accident" in Character fatalities. Good comments.
There may be some "crossover" suprises between "Buffy" and "Angel." They've already admitted that Faith will make a major crossover. Now we also see that Willow will skip to LA for a show.
Yes. Sudden dice death does add something to the game, though the GM has to understand that even random events are the GM's responsibility. Whether you see the death coming or not... if you "call" it, you take accountability for it.
In that sense, the dice have no authority over the fate of the heroes. Does that make sense? The GameMaster chooses whether to use judgment or a tool of chance. Or both.
