Generic Role-playing Game System - Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages and Disadvantages

Many role-playing games have rules designed for a specific genre such as sword and sorcery, or specific fictional universes such as that of the Star Wars series. Conversely, a generic system has basic rules designed to handle the wide variety of situations that can arise in the spectrum of settings. There is a long-standing dispute among RPG professionals over whether any system can be truly generic and whether it produces better games to use them or to build the system around the desired setting and genre.

The advantage of a generic rule system is that players only need to buy and learn from one main rule book, saving money and time. Since most settings share a large set of features, such as the way characters move and fight, players would not have to re-learn such basics when starting in a new setting using those generic rules. This eases players in the move from one setting to another. The players and the game master choose the desired setting before starting a game.

Generic game systems also have their share of disadvantages. Often, the basic rules of a generic system are more complex than those designed for a specific setting. Generic rule books have to cover features and aspects that might be of little use in some settings. Also, game developers still might need to produce rule books designed for specific settings to provide meaningful gameplay. If the developers take this too far, it can offset the original advantages of a generic system in the first place.