Losing Heart on my Heartbreaker

[Ayyavazi]

Hey everyone,

I'm having a problem. I want to build an RPG about morality and power. I suppose this mirrors Egon's RPG in certain ways, and I've been convincing myself, "this is not just a heartbreaker" But it is.  My RPG's setting is definitively fantasy, and though the only recognizable standard race is Humans, it still has all the bells and whistles of a Heartbreaker setting. Further, I have been trying to make a system that accomodates the various modes of play, but am unable to devise a system that necessarily fits the setting.

Further, I'm starting to wonder if writing a Heartbreaker would even be worth it to me. I've got three different system ideas, all of which don't work well with my setting, and would make non-heartbreaker rpgs that are probably very interesting.

So what do I do with my setting?

I've worked very hard on it, and I like to think its a dynamic fantasy world, but at the end of the day its just a fantasy world. Should I write it up a setting without rules and let people use it in whatever system they like, and move on to other games that I have ideas for, or do I continue making the Heartbreaker?

Any suggestions would be appreciated here. And if anyone is interested in my three ideas, let me know. I can post them all here to see if they are worth their salt.

--Norm

[Luke]

Hi Norm,
You can make a fantasy game that is not a heartbreaker. I know this from personal experience.

-L

[Egonblaidd]

One thing you could do to let your setting sit on the shelf for a while while you work on something else.  Come back to it later and you should be able to approach the problem from a fresh perspective.

If you can finish it, though, there's no reason not to, even if it's similar to my game.  Experience is always helpful.

(I'm in a class so my reply has to be short.)

[Darcy Burgess]

Hey Norm,

What's the coolest thing about your setting?  Specifically, what does playing in your setting allow players to do that's pretty keen?

Toodles,
D

[soundmasterj]

I want to build an RPG about morality and power.

How to NOT make a heartbreaker: Make rules about morality and power, not about how long a longsword is, how many initiative boni elves get and how much damage you take when falling.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Another pretty good general advice is to play more and different games. It's very difficult to break out of the heartbreaker niche if you've only ever played D&D and its close relatives. The designers who make their cachet by originality have played a pretty impressive amount of radically different roleplaying games, competing with them without doing the same is unlikely.

[Callan S.]

Has the defintion of 'heartbreaker' drifted recently?

I might be remembering it wrong, but generally it's something brilliant in a game that is covered over by tons of same old, same old, and/or plain old dross. The heartbreak is that this brilliant thing will not be seen for all this other stuff that has to played out, and thus gets in the way of the brilliant thing being experienced or if it is experienced, it's rarely and mostly it's what's experienced is the same old stuff D&D did.

Does the game cut to the brillaint thing and keep cutting to it, or do you have to do alot of the same old D&D like stuff before you ever get to the brill thing?

[Eero Tuovinen]

It hasn't changed that I know of, it's just that designers with narrow experiences produce exactly that: they put their good ideas into a game that mostly looks like the things they've played themselves.

[Ayyavazi]

Thanks for the tips guys.

I've since decided to stop doing three different things in the same game. Instead of trying to make a game utilizing some of the cool ideas I've had, and still fit it into the heartbreaker mold, (if there is such a thing) I'll be making a fantasy RPG with some standard and non-standard stuff, and breaking out my new ideas into seperate games.

I'll post my ideas here in first thoughts, eventually. For now, take it easy and thanks a ton.
\

--norm