Postby Athaeis » Thu Jan 22, 2015 3:23 pm
Regardless of the setting, regardless of the history or lore, regardless of the system, every single game that is vetted as a role-playing game can be used for whatever purpose you want it to be used for, whether as a combat simulator, for objectives completion, for exploration/spelunking, for character-driven, or any other purpose you want it to be used for, and I have an example of that.
Do you remember the Aliens Adventure Game by Leading Edge Games, back in the early 90's?
That was my game, man... it was a combat simulator with character statistics, and little more, and I managed to turn it into my best role-playing game, ever. There was combat, yes, but it was amidst relatively equal portions of investigation, horror film, character interaction, political and corporate intrigue aimed at the player characters, and more. My group and I had begun a Strike Team game, where they were focused around being Colonial Marines, and instead of chasing after Aliens, they were called in to deal with a Combat Synthetic, because of course Combat Synths are illegal in the ICC. They were on their way planetside, on the DropShip, and opened a channel to get a feed from the local cops, and one of the cops had worked his way into the basement of the building this terrorist group with the Combat Synth had taken over. For the next while, I guess it was about a half-hour, maybe, I performed all of the sound effects, radio calls, answered all of the questions, for my players, of this cop going into the building to get intelligence, all the way up until he was killed. I got a standing ovation for that role-playing, though I didn't even know how completely in the zone I was, and I've NEVER been able to do that, again.
The point is that it doesn't matter what the game is constructed of and, unless you just absolutely cannot stand the system, you can make anything of any RPG you run. That part is up to you, not the manufacturer of the game.
Now, that's something I would like to see in the GM book, I guess... more instruction on how to ham it up in-game.