Hey, /tg/.
Let's talk game design. There's hundreds and hundreds of PnP/tabletop game systems out there. If someone wanted to make a new one, I think it'd be in their best interests to tackle something not over-saturated.
Medieval fantasy is already beaten to death with D&D, Pathfinder and a swarth of others. "Why would I play System X when I can just play Pathfinder/Fantasycraft/etc".
For futuristic shit (of varying degrees), you've got Shadowrun, Cyberpunk 2020, Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader, Traveler, and some others. You *might* be able to make an oddball title for this genre but I think the interest is small enough and already covered.
For 'modern' gothic horror stuff, you have basically the entire White Wolf catalog of games, Call of Cthulhu, AFMBE, Don't Rest Your Head, etc.
I'm not the most versed guy when it comes to tabletop systems, but how much stuff is out there for like, modern day? I don't mean modern day with magic, or vampires and shit. I mean modern day like Grand Theft Auto/Army of Two/etc.
I know d20 Modern, and that's it. I know GURPS can do anything, but that's not what I'm asking. Are there any tabletop games that were made specifically for a contemporary modern setting?
Don't even give a fuck about genre. Unless you innovate your mechanics your game will just be added to the long list of shit games nobody cares about.
Look at Dungeon World. It goes out of its fucking way to ape D&D's trappings while doing so with flavor of the month's PbtA's mechanics. And it's hot shit as far as the idiots who eat that shit up are concerned.
People who want trad are already up to their eyeballs in it. Trad games are dead. The only thing that generates buzz is mechanically interesting games.
>>44378633
I think genre is important as well though. I agree 100% that the mechanics have to be new and interesting, and also simple enough for 'tardos.
I don't want Lamentations of the Flame Princess or Dungeon World II though.
>>44378481
Feng Shui is probably the most popular "modern" game that people actually play. There's Fiasco, which doesn't really fit the image of pnp RPG in my opinion.
Spycraft and Ninjas & Superspies are both good but dated. That's the real problem with making a modern/contemporary game. Depending on what you use/do, things that are "modern" now can be laughable in just 3-4 years.
>>44378829
Fake and gay
>>44378481
Making a whole world and generic rules system for what people do in it is largely pointless and you're bound to just be "like that other game but without a playerbase".
The way I see it, your options are either;
1: making a very thematically narrow game with mechanics tied specifically to the situations it revolves around, like Poison'd! Where you are pirates and all the rules and framework for the sessions revolves around pirate shit.
2: Making a game that focuses on story elements, because honestly, system mastery, deep combat mechanics, supertons of detail type systems have been done to death and people don't want to switch from the ones they know anyway.
On the other hand there are a lot of people, new players that aren't already gamers specifically, that are dissatisfied with how disconnected PF or D&D are from mainstream fantasy, as an example. So many people get turned off to role-playing when they come barging in all bright-eyed with their favourite fantasy/scif-fi/horror series clutched in one arm and go "oh boy, I want to have some story!" and then they sit down and get told that sure, lets do that, but first you need to know 200 pages of rules and how to make a character, and the character you wanted to make ends up being kind of shit because those are the rules.
There's a whole category of role-players out there who feel disenfranchised because pen and paper rpgs have largely stopped being a facet of being into the fantasy or sci-fi fandoms, and become part of mainstream gaming, which is why combat-heavy rulesmonsters that run like WoW without graphics are the biggest rpgs (in the states).
>>44379652
>the character you wanted to make ends up being kind of shit because those are the rules.
Underrated comment.
90% of all complaints from players in games I've played or GM stem from dissatisfaction that there isn't an easy/viable way to make their character exactly how they imagined it.
>>44380038
I think it kind of stems from how little pen and paper rpgs have become about the fiction and how much they've become about the gaming.
A lot of people sit down and worry more about stuff like balance or how to break/optimize in it, instead of just thinking about what they think would be cool to experience and if the system is conducive to that.
This is why I play more and more fairly rules-light or homebrew stuff, I want the minimum amount of friction between someone's awesome idea and realizing it in the game.
>>44379526
>Fake and gay
Uh?
>>44378481
I always thought about developing a system for subterfuge and international gonzo adventures based largely off of Warren Zevon, Hunter S. Thompson, a little James Bond, See No Evil... basically any kind of combat covering hot zones from the 60's-90's.
>wronging some mexican cartels in the 80's.
>getting wrapped up in counter intelligence just before the bay of pigs
>tracking down war criminals/being war criminals during the Balkans
>hired guns during the Congo wars
>aiding/escaping the Rhodesian civil war
That whole era is pretty much untouched by film/games
>>44381400
It's not actually from 1978. Faux retro shit pretending to be legit is fake, and also gay.
>>44381445
>pretending to be legit
I see...
>>44380038
Most people imagine that their characters should be allowed to do absolutely everything and no harm should ever come to them.
There needs to be some rules in place for building a character, otherwise you run into trouble when someone outshines everyone else.
>>44381489
He means legit in the sense that it's from 1978, not seriousness.
I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with making an RPG for a saturated genre, but it does make it harder to answer one of the fundamental questions you should ask yourself in the design process.
Why should people give a fuck about your game? What does it do differently or better than other available games? How does it distinguish itself as something noteworthy amongst a field full of dull clones?
A good answer to that question is vital. And no, 'A good setting' doesn't cut it these days.
>>44381525
But there's literally only two things that it can do differently.
1) Mechanics. The mechanics blow the other ones out of the water.
2) Setting. The setting is so totally dank that people want to play this shit.
There's no other reason that someone would play your game over the other games (with the possible exception of "Popular celebrity person said this game is awesome so we should all play it")
>>44381507
That's an oddly specific reason to dislike something, but thanks
>>44381491
That's totally not what was meant with that comment and is a very extreme interpretation.
I meant stuff like
>I want kind of a robin hood character...
Nope, bows are shit in this system.
>Hmmm okay, how about a wizard kinda like that character from that book?
Wizards work completely different here and they can't do any of that stuff.
Like, why do I need a system that concerns itself with small details instead of the broader strokes? It only promotes finding the "best" option and that option ending up looking a specific way.
If someone wants to make fantasy indiana jones I think that's awesome, why wouldn't I want that just because someone sat down and decided that whips are shit. I mean, obviously they ARE shit, but is it important to the campaign that they are shit?
Most systems just boil down to a list of 300 different names on things that are all just about rolling slightly different dice anyway, I like systems to have some leeway instead of welding the mechanics to the lore, unless they are super-narrow by intention.
As soon as it becomes about figuring out what character is best instead of the best way to make the character you wanted, I think something gets lost along the way.
>>44381720
So FATE is the game for you?
>>44381720
>>44381821
I feel that something else is also lost though when there's virtually no distinction between weapons.
Whip Guy does 2d6, Sword Guy does 2d6, Laser Wizard does 2d6, etc. If some stuff doesn't suck, then there's almost no point to having mechanical variety.
>>44381441
I thoroughly edorse the creation of a drug feuled gonzo adventure system even if every campaign will inevitably be less fear and loathing and more devil's rejects.
