Roleplaying Game Discourse

Does System Matter?

Yes, but my confidence waxes and wanes depending on the context. Who is this question for in the first place? I’m going to make assumptions for the sake of conversation and sanity and suggest that game designers and game masters want to know the answer. “Does the game system matter?”

The game designer wants to know because it helps them understand what they’re doing, why it matters, and how they might make better games.

The game master wants to know because it helps them decide what game to play, how to play it, and how to share the game with their players to enjoy each other's company and not regret the time spent playing the game.

Define System

First, my definition of “system” because my lived experience with gaming is by no means monolithic. From my perspective, system is any part of the text or design (visual or otherwise) that informs its reader what something is like, how to do it, or what to think.

Its effects can be explicit, implicit, or left to the players to figure out.

That means a game’s system can be rules, like dice, math, or programmatic language (re: “if this, then that,” like in Monsterhearts).

But it also means system can be statements like, “this game is about mice who drive cars.” A short story in the game’s text. An allusion to another game through its art. Or even the deliberate omission of something that feels important, like how many OSR products have no rules for diplomacy but make combat lethal and something to avoid.

Anything the game designer can manipulate that will impact how people play is, in my interpretation, part of the system.

Even the font choice. But I’ll save that controversial opinion for later.

The Question

“Does system matter” is actually a hundred different questions. So, let’s unpack a few, and I’ll answer each individually based on my above interpretation of what a system is…

Does a system impact my experience with my players?

Yes. The game system’s rules, writing, and production are context and tools that will change your table’s shared experience, imagination, and expectations. In other words, if you want to play a game about mobsters in a gunfight, you won’t get the same results using D&D as you would with Fate, or Fighting Fantasy, or GURPS.

If you walked up to a table with a Warhammer Fantasy book, set it down, and said you were going to play it, but never opened it, the picture on the cover would be all that it takes to make them play differently (however small) from the alternate reality where they never saw that book at all.

If we can agree that something as small as a picture or the name of a product can impact how you play, we can probably agree that playing the rules as written would have an impact as well.

Does a game’s system decide what is and isn’t fun?

No. If your group is healthy and collaborative, they will try to have fun no matter what. Human beings intuitively modify games as they’re playing them to have a good time. The system cannot stop them from doing this.

Monopoly, a board game, is beloved by many people despite many designers agreeing its rules aren’t designed to make people happy. Why is that? People (for the most part) probably choose to play Monopoly because they want to spend time with other people and enjoy their company. Nothing in the rules says you should talk in a faux accent or wear a monocle while playing monopoly, but I know from experience it makes the game 10000% funnier.

A game’s design doesn’t dictate how people choose to feel. It can only encourage them to try and feel a certain way in a particular context.

Are people actually playing with a system, really?

No actually! Most people are playing an interpretation of your game’s system taught to them by their GM.

If your game is especially prolific, the GM might not have learned the game from you. In fact, lots of D&D players learned through a decade-long game of telephone or by watching other people play on Twitch.

Some games are played completely differently based on what games they played before or what communities they’re a part of.

Even in the ’80s, when Dungeon Masters were still reading the manuals, they regularly missed or omitted details that were in the text. And it wasn’t always deliberate. Players regularly used only a fraction of the game’s system because of how unorganized or unintuitive the earlier editions were.

So, no, players aren’t 100% playing with your system. But that doesn’t mean whatever amount of influence isn’t worthwhile.

Is a system needed to create certain experiences?

Yes, but part of being a game designer is choosing how involved that system is. Some games enforce behavior by merely saying, “this game is about cowboys.” Meanwhile, other games create entire feedback loops that incentivized or disincentivized behaviors. Some systems have rituals or step-by-step procedures for how to talk or resolve a moment within the game.

Some groups perform well with very little system interference, but I object to the notion that you can do anything without one.

Labeling systems as bad gatekeeps people from telling the countless human experiences that are rife with them in real life.

For example, if I wanted to make a game where players tried to pass legislation in a gridlocked Congress, I can‘t expect predictable outcomes or even a robust gallery of experiences about American politics without a system (however abstract) that can help us understand and internalize the complexity that's core to its identity.

Is making a manipulative system inherently bad?

No. This is an extension of the previous answer. Systems that suggest certain behaviors are not inherently bad and they’re not inherently inhuman.

In many cases, rules, context, and designed experiences are exactly why something is human even if the system (specifically “feedback loops”) is intentionally triggering psychological phenomena.

Holding this belief in other contexts would be plainly problematic.

Wanting, supporting, or designing a system that triggers your brain in a particular way is an intrinsic part of language, relationships, therapy, medical care, education, debate, and government — incredibly structured things, with rules, rituals, and feedback loops intertwined.

If a game wants to expand the human experience and help me share intimate moments with my friends, I don’t mind that a rule that “makes me throw a shit-ton of dice” is secretly tapping into a human’s evolutionary predilection for resources.

What is immoral is when that system suggests a reality that isn’t true or supports immoral behavior as a fun exercise without context. This includes biological determinism in character creation or rewarding adventurers for colonialism, or treating other cultures as “primitive.”

This very real example of a game system being immoral is constant. It’s always happening as human society — often unevenly — improves upon itself and evaluates its past, present, and future.

Can a game exist without system?

No. This is my most controversial take, but I don’t believe there’s a way to communicate “let’s play” without some assumptions being conveyed at the same time about how we play.

This conclusion is predicated on what I defined as a system earlier in the article, “[Any] text or design that informs its reader what something is like, how to do it, or what to think.”

Here’s my thought experiment to test this:

My game is just one word, “Play.” To determine whether this game has a system, I’m going to try and change the way you convey it by manipulating its text or design.

The original game: “Play.”

• Play! — Ah yes, punctuation could suggest energy in the gameplay.
• Tocar. —This game, in some way, suggests Spanish meaning or intent.
• Play? — The reader is probably wondering if they’re expected to answer.
• PLAY. — Big letters on a white page. It might be authoritarian.
• “Play” — I’m saying this outside in a park. The game is now physical.
• “Play” — I’m saying this at a table. Players might stay seated.
• “Play” — I’m whispering this holding a crucifix like an action figure.

Conclusion

Whether you’re playing, running, or designing a game, I think system matters. There are likely hundreds of interpretations or meanings, but I struggle to see a world where deliberateness is inconsequential.

Which brings me to this Sisyphean struggle. This particular Twitter discourse is regularly toxic. It’s somewhere between radioactive waste and Star Wars.

But I think it's encouraging to remember that our passion for this debate is proof that it’s meaningful. The fact that we constantly rediscover, examine, and challenge this question means we’re constantly growing and changing—not stagnating.

The day we stop seeing this question is when experimentation stops, critical examination ends, and the community ceases to grow. We’re not there yet.

That’s pretty cool.