Brian Campbell writes:
>My recommendation would be to not try to make it a generic RPG
>system. There are plenty of decent (depending on your preferences)
>generic systems already (D20, GURPS, Storyteller, Fudge/FATE, Rifts,
>etc),
Not necessarily. Frex, PTA is as generic system as most of the above
-- yet far more different from any of them than most are from one
another. (OTE is another "different" generic system which is more
similar -- but still pretty different).
Actually, for all their flaws (of most of them, anyway), -most- of the
games coming out of the Indie Explosion centered on The Forge are more
different from the above games (and from one another) than most games.
>I've found that most of the interesting work in designing game
>systems has been in the parts that are specific to the game in
>question.
Pretty much. Design your game by looking first at how you want it to
be played -- using rules that foster that play. IOW, design your RPG
less like "it's like GURPS, except..." and more like a board game.
--
Joshua Kronengold (mneme@(io.com, labcats.org)) |\ _,,,--,,_ ,)
--^-- "Did you know, if you increment enough, you /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;'
/\\ get an extra digit?" "I knew," weeps Six. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\
/-\\\ "We knew. But we had forgotten." '---''(_/--' (_/-'