“The RPG system doesn't matter?” Wrong! Find out why it's essential

One of the most common claims about tabletop RPGs (or role-playing games) is: “The system doesn't matter.” Is that really true? Of course, that's total nonsense. Duh. The system matters. Like, hellishly so. Done.

What, you're still here? I already answered the most important part. Not enough? Fine, let's take a closer look.

Teammates are gold

Before I dive in, I need to address the other half of that claim – it mainly depends on the GM, the storyteller, or the dungeon master (delete as appropriate).

I agree that a good GM can smooth over the flaws of bad systems, and a bad storyteller will ruin anything.

The strongest factor in how much you enjoy the game is the people you play with. And it doesn't matter if it's the GM or the players. RPGs are still primarily a social activity, and a good group is the foundation without which it just isn't the same. Right after a good group, the final impression of the game is most influenced by the system you're playing.

Caves and Dragons aren't rubber boots

Every system is suited for a different setting. That's the first and obvious reason why the system matters. If I'm in the mood for a Buffy-style game hunting monsters in modern-day Ostrava, I'll reach for Monster of the Week, not Caves and Dragons.

Whatever your opinion on JaD, the fact is that it absolutely doesn't handle situations where you're shooting silver bullets from a Fabia at a ghoul selling ecstasy to Poles on Stodolní Street.

Sure, you can add a layer to the rules for the modern world and new monster hunter classes, but the moment the setting forces you to bend the rules, you should realize you've brought a drill to paint a study.

Attempts to modify DnD for adventures like aliens vs. Nazis remind me most of those stupid videos where a guy tapes sticks to his shoe, wraps it in more duct tape, pulls a plastic bag over it, tapes it again, and then walks happily in the water without his socks getting wet.

Sure, it basically works, it's just pointlessly laborious, impractical, absolutely hideous, and doesn't last long. I think we can all agree that rubber boots are more practical. Especially when the selection of rubber boots is richer than ever before.

We're hunting monsters in the present day. Want a pulpier, fast-paced action ride? I'll reach for Monster of the Week. Want something mechanically more robust and darker? I've got Hunters from World of Darkness here. Hunting monsters with giant robots? Time to pull out Henshin.

When betrayal needs to hurt, you need trust

You can rightfully argue that there are universal systems (Fate, GURPS) that easily solve this problem. But the setting isn't the only (or even the main) reason why the system really matters.

A good specialized system has the aspects and atmosphere of the game captured in a way that these generic systems aren't built for.

I'll explain with the example of the Mountain Witch RPG. In this game, you play as a group of ronin, masterless samurai, setting out to kill an evil sorcerer living on the peak of Mount Fuji. The catch is that each ronin has their own agenda, and the sorcerer will try to turn their weaknesses against them. While the ronin are distrustful of each other, they won't overcome the mountain's obstacles without cooperation.

Mechanically, it looks like this: During rest, each character gives every other character trust points. They can give the same amount, one more, or any number less than during the last rest. This shows how much they trust that character.

When rolling against an obstacle, characters can spend these trust points. If they want to help a colleague overcoming an obstacle, they can turn one trust point into an extra die. If they want to sabotage them, they can turn any number of trust points into a penalty on the roll.

At that point, how much you trust others has a clear and major mechanical impact. You consider much more carefully who to trust and who not to. Trusting the wrong person can mechanically sink you at the wrong moment. The tension between strangers forced to cooperate translates from the story into the mechanics, thereby intensifying the narrative tension and strengthening roleplay.

The same adventure can be played in Fate, but the absence of this mechanic completely changes the atmosphere of the game, and the experience will be different, imho significantly poorer.

Loot, kill all the loot!

There are many more subtle nuances to how a chosen system influences the game. Let's take, for example, how characters improve and what they get experience for.

If you get XP in a game mainly for killing monsters, you have a much greater motivation to massacre everything you meet. You look at enemies through the lens of whether getting that pile of XP won't cost you an unreasonable amount of resources (health, potions, money).

Computer game authors are aware of this too – for example, the excellent Pillars of Eternity removed XP for killing, so that sneaking became a full-fledged playstyle and didn't give players unnecessary motivation to comb every corner of the map for bugs worth ten XP.

Other games give XP purely for wealth gained during the adventure. Suddenly, players take everything that isn't nailed down, and dilemmas in the game stem from questions like “Will I piss someone off if I steal this?” or “Should I take this heavy but valuable statue if I might need to run away from something?”

Blades in the Dark gives XP when the characters' past or origin enters the game. It motivates players to flesh out their character more, and suddenly the difference between a native citizen of Doskvol and a Skovlan immigrant who fled to Doskvol from the war is much more visible in the game.

The circus doesn't fight

Even how the rules emphasize one part of the game or another will hugely influence what happens in the game and how.

If you play Pathfinder, you can look forward to tactical combat full of choices – which ability to use in combat, when and how to stand, and which opponent to target. However, it means that every fight will be relatively long, and if you're playing an adventure where combat isn't emphasized, the rules will rather hinder you and hold you back from what's important.

And conversely, it won't support you in situations where you're dealing with social conflict or slam poetry battles.

In contrast, a game like Under the Hollow Hills has no rules for combat at all. It's a game about a faerie circus that arrives somewhere, puts on a show tailored to its environment and audience, disrupts the status quo, changes its surroundings and itself, and leaves again.

It's not expected that characters will fight in this game. However, it has rules for how to gather information, how to manipulate the environment and characters, and how the circus's magic changes the surroundings and the circus itself.

A faerie circus in Pathfinder would be a misery. Just as it would be a misery to try to send fairies into some dungeon to kill goblins. Yes, you can bend and add to the rules, but again, we're getting back to rubber boots, drills, and confused metaphors.

Will the detective get scared?

One of the hardest genres in role-playing games is horror. A good scary adventure needs vulnerable characters, atmosphere, and a specific plot structure.

Good horror will be hard to do in a classic dungeon crawler. Characters are relatively competent, and the system gives you no mechanical support for the gradual building of dread and terror.

On the other side of the barricade stands the game Dread. While in other games you roll dice, here you pull blocks from a Jenga tower. As long as you succeed in pulling the blocks, the characters succeed in overcoming horrors. As soon as the tower falls, all is lost.

Shaking hands manipulating an increasingly unstable structure beautifully reflect the atmosphere and structure of a horror story. Every shake of the tower symbolizes impending doom, and everyone knows that sooner or later the moment will come when it all falls down. In the physical world and in the adventure.

Detective stories built around gathering clues and revealing hidden truths are similar. Yes, it can be played in almost anything, but the game will be significantly better if you have tools at hand that make it easier for you.

Let's take playing a detective story in some classic dungeon crawler. Usually, one of three situations occurs:

1. You don't use the rules at all because they don't really exist for it, or they aren't very good.
2. You let the characters roll for charisma or searching, but you manipulate the difficulties so that someone always succeeds because you need to get the clues into the game.
3. You let the characters roll, you don't manipulate the difficulties, and the characters miss important information, so they hit walls and frustration ensues.

In contrast, Gumshoe has dealing with clues solved much better and supports you systematically. In Monster of the Week, a failure in investigation can reveal something scary or unfavorable and allows the villain to do something against the party.

The system just matters

I believe it's clear to both of us now that the system really does matter. Next time you're starting a new campaign or maybe just a one-shot adventure, ask the other players what they actually want to play.

Do you want to play heroic fantasy, save villages, and fight undead armies of fallen sorcerers? Caves and Dragons or a similar dungeon crawler are the clear choice.

Do you want something else? Maybe explore unknown territories or play pure court intrigue? Maybe something even wilder? How about galactic chefs? Time travelers fighting against Dagon?

Every new game is an ideal opportunity to look around the rich world of role-playing games and try something else. Every system is a tool. And every tool is suited for something else, unless you belong to those types who paint pictures with a drill.

author Ondřej Mráz