Deadly Systems are Doomed
As my brain meandered the other day, as it is apt to do, I had a thought about game systems. A common trait between many unpopular systems is that they possessed combat systems which are very deadly. A mere chance encounter leads to character death far more often than other systems.
All systems can be deadly but the systems that have not achieved popularity do not possess the ability to mitigate risk. Other than a GM blatantly fudging rolls, a characters in those combat systems are likely to end up dead. Is a deadly combat system a death knell for a system? Not necessarily. However, the odds do not to be in the system’s favor. Popularity, failure, and deadly are all very subjective. Definitions are required and because it was my thought, I must define each of them.
Popularity:
If a game system is no longer available at a game store in some resemblance of its current state, especially by name, consider it non-popular. If the original name is intact and still available, no matter the divergence from its roots, consider it popular if and only if it has been commercially available for a decade or more.
Failure:
Utter failure would be a rule system that reached publication but failed to garner any support by the publisher in the form of a second edition or by having affiliated materials published. Many systems fall in the middle between failure and popular. In the end, those systems that showed up but only lasted fewer than 5 years, should be judged as failures. Harsh but they failed the test of time.
Deadly:
Deadly is far easier to define. Should a character step into combat, he has about equal odds of dying or surviving. Mano a Mano will result in someone dying. It might be the PC, it might be the other guy. Equally paired, players with even stats, are evenly matched. Being outmatched is not deadly, it is being stupid or being forced to engage in combat when you should not.
In the End:
No game system I could recall hit all those factors and still remains. Kevin offered an exception. D&D. In the basic edition, D&D hit all the deadly requirements but is still popular. It was very deadly but the system has elements which mitigate death: Armor and encounter strength. Killing kobolds at level 3 is not deadly.
Is there any game system, set in relatively modern times, that defies my supposition? By relatively modern, assume from the time the crossbow made plate armor moot through when kevlar was introduced as a staple of modern warfighting? Are all systems such as Boot Hill, Gang Busters, James Bond, Top Secret, etc. doomed to failure before they start?
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You’re primarily talking about games that have combat as their emphasis. Where an RPG is not all about tactial skirmishes then they can be more realistic (i.e. with regard to deadliness) in their portrayal of violence.
There are some popular ones that are “deadly”. It depends what you want out of the game. For combat crunch, D&D had been refined over many years to provide just that.
“If a game system is no longer available at a game store in some resemblance of its current state, especially by name, consider it non-popular. ”
That’s a pretty harsh definition – after all, I haven’t seen WFRP in a game store for a while, yet it appears to remain one of the most popular systems.
Conversely, I often see game shops with dusty stacks of Mongoose Traveller or SCION. I wouldn’t have thought of either of those as being particularly popular 😉
As for contemporary deadly RPGs, Cthulhu can be pretty deadly (admittedly more due to insanity then combat) as can the various Warhammer RPGs (although they contain mechanics to allow a player to negate death due to exceptional twists of fate).
Castles and Crusades is pretty deadly at low levels as well.
GURPS is one of the more deadly systems in its modern and historical versions and it still survives. As Hammer says, CoC can be exceptionally deadly yet it continues (though that may actually be one of it selling points).
I would say it is more the genre than the deadliness of a system. People seem to be more willing to buy into fantasy as a setting than modern(ish) period games. I am not sure why exactly but it seems to be a truism from my 30+ years watching and playing RPGs.
The Morrow Project
Mortals-based World of Darkness
Call of Cthulhu (or any BRP Chaosium game)
GURPS (without any super powers or what have you)
I have seen all of the above at game stores both in the early 1990s and recently, as well as their supplements and modules. In all of those systems one or two solid hits can kill you.
Maybe the question should be modified to look at frequency of play rather than popularity? (For instance, it seems that strictly mortals-based WoD and CoC are used more often for one-shots than campaign play . . .)
Great points all. GURPS is a great counter example. I missed that completely. I’m not familiar with CoC but have heard it is also a good counter example. I’ll have to check it out as well as some of the other games mentioned.
@Hammer: Agreed, its a harsh definition but I had to choose something. And great point on the stacks of what appear to be non-popular games still available.
@DeadGod: I wish there was some metric for frequency of play vs popularity. I don’t know of any place to measure that but I agree its a consideration.
@Sean: The genre aspect crossed my mind as well. Systems that are not pseudo historical based, in general, seem to have an advantage. Fantasy games lead that list more so than SciFi ones. Maybe its easier to suspend disbelief within fantasy genres. Perhaps more so, it is what a lot of us would like to believe.
Thanks all.