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this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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For more complex games like what you're describing, I'm a big fan of generic systems like Savage Worlds, where it's intentionally made to potentially handle anything
I'm in the GURPS pipeline now. Dead simple or brain meltingly complex, or anything in between.
GURPS is great too, I just prefer SWADE because it's easier for a lazy GM like me because of how easy it is to set up encounters and swap setting rules in/out.
Well, it's also because my campaign is a setting-hopping/genre-changing monstrosity, so I wanted to be able to swap the genre-specific rules quickly and easily. Since SWADE gives you a complete, opinionated system out of the box and the genre stuff is more just extra edges/hindrances/gear and a small handful of setting rules, whereas my impression with GURPS is that you kinda need to complete the ruleset yourself to "build your own game" to fit your setting/campaign, which would (I imagine) make swapping settings lile video game cartridges take a lot more prep.
Ehhh, once it clicks, GURPS boils down to 3d6 ≤ skill level + modifiers. All the "game settings" are just tools to accurately map the character and world concepts into appropriately priced skill levels and modifiers. The more comfortable the GM gets with pricing, the more they can just wing it and go with a modifier that feels right.
You don't "swap" rules, you use the same rules for everything. All the rulebooks are just guides for keeping modifiers balanced, although the canonical GURPS universe is predominantly a setting-hopping/genre-changing monstrosity so that might be of interest to you.
That does sound fairly cool. I'll look into the lore.
That said, my group took like 5 months to really get comfortable with SWADE and I personally find that system dead simple.
True, Savage Worlds is a good option for a more flexible game, as well as Fate.