What the world needs now is another generic RPG system.
No, that wasn;t pure sarcasm. Role-playing is such an amorphous pursuit that a new approach should always be welcomed. Now the author and publishers of maelstrom have refined their rules system into something that can theoretically be used with all genres. Story Engine is a generic system -- and then again it isn't really. It really does insist you tell a story-based game Fprtuntaely their mechanics,, while they take some getting used to, are really nice and a lot of fun to play around with.
Story Engine is a "new wave" RPG that eschews traditional concepts like stats, rounds and subjective ranking of characters. Instead your character gets a series of "descriptors" that define the character and also determines what he can do. The descriptors can be anything the player can imagine that fits the game the GM wants to run. The typical stating PC has three of these; in character creation you are given a pool of "story points" with which you can buy your abilities, flaws, and so forth. Why buy flaws (here referred to as "quirks")? you'll see in a moment.
The descriptors are then divided up into one of four classes: Mind, Matterm, Spirit and Chaos. You get a die to roll for each descriptor in an Aspect.
In addition to descriptors and quirks, you can get Prime Affinities, which are more powerful abilities (and if you don';t have one for your native cluture you're in deep trouble....) and Trait Affinities which make it easioer to make die rolls where they apply.
Before going into how you do something, a word of caution. Story Engine activities do not divide neatly into rounds or turns. Instead, each particular event in the game is a "scene". An entire fight, for example, is one scene. In a scene, all the characters involved in the direct action combine their dice to roll against the difficulty or their opponents. If it looks like they'll need the help they can "burn" Descriptors to get extra dice -- but they need to describe how the dewscriptor they are burning affects the action in the scene. Quirks, when burnt in this fashion, also yield extra dice.
The number of odd numbers on the dice you roll is the number of successes you get -- if it's more than the enemy or target you've "won the scene". Trait Affinities are handy because they allow you to roll some of your dice so that they're automatically counted as odd even when they're not. Handy, that. It's also obvious that the more dice you have the better, that there's a better chance in numbers, and that having the right Descriptor can save your bacon.
This is a great game for storytellers. It can be frsjutrating for people who like detail, because here EVERYTHING is fuzzy in a cinematic sort of way. But the right kind of gamer -- the one who loves to take part in the spinning of a yarn -- will really, really enjoy the Story Engine.
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(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)