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Does System matter, part VIII: Godlike
Feb. 26th, 2008 03:28 pmThis is likely the last example in the series of posts translating a single character into a variety of systems, though I expect to do at least one more discussing what I've learned. The character in question – Dr. Zachary Zevon, the Indestructible Man - started in Villains and Vigilantes, and now exists in Silver Age Sentinels, HERO, Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes, FUDGE and Truth & Justice. There was an aborted attempt in GURPS and finally, I’m trying to tackle This lat entry covers GODLIKE, Greg Stolze's and Dennis Detwiller's game of supers in WWII.
So how's the fidelity here: Bad, as several key elements just run against the setting rules. This bugs me much less than the problems I have in GURPS or HERO, because GODLIKE is designed for a very specific environment: you're playing Supers in WWII, and not just any WWII, but this specific version with these specific power rules. It's not designed to be customizable to other settings, and I suspect that if you took it out of this one it would fail. Wild Talents, the generic version of this rules set, took years of playtesting (it just came out last year, when GODLIKE appeared in 2001). whswhs tried using these rules for his Ghazi game (the PCs were bearers of one of the 100 names of Allah, fighting off the Crusaders) and he had serious problems not just with the dice curve but with the lack of heavy firepower needed to counteract some of the abilities. The problem here is not that GODLIKE can't handle Dr. Z, but that Dr. Z has no place in GODLIKE. A can't be a standard bearer for systems designed for specific settings and then complain that the specific settings can't handle my ported in character: unlike the others, GODLIKE never claimed it could.
Expect a wrap up essay in the next day or so. I might still noodle around with getting GURPS to work, but that will be inside the GURPS post and not on the main page. So far it's been an interesting experiment.
( GODLIKE )
So how's the fidelity here: Bad, as several key elements just run against the setting rules. This bugs me much less than the problems I have in GURPS or HERO, because GODLIKE is designed for a very specific environment: you're playing Supers in WWII, and not just any WWII, but this specific version with these specific power rules. It's not designed to be customizable to other settings, and I suspect that if you took it out of this one it would fail. Wild Talents, the generic version of this rules set, took years of playtesting (it just came out last year, when GODLIKE appeared in 2001). whswhs tried using these rules for his Ghazi game (the PCs were bearers of one of the 100 names of Allah, fighting off the Crusaders) and he had serious problems not just with the dice curve but with the lack of heavy firepower needed to counteract some of the abilities. The problem here is not that GODLIKE can't handle Dr. Z, but that Dr. Z has no place in GODLIKE. A can't be a standard bearer for systems designed for specific settings and then complain that the specific settings can't handle my ported in character: unlike the others, GODLIKE never claimed it could.
Expect a wrap up essay in the next day or so. I might still noodle around with getting GURPS to work, but that will be inside the GURPS post and not on the main page. So far it's been an interesting experiment.
