Playing universal RPG systems can reduce the energy and time needed to learn a new system, speeding players into new games quickly and easily.
Dungeons & Dragons represents over half of all role-playing games played. Games of D&D are the most common beginning of a hobby that people can pursue for their entire lifetimes. It's common for people who like D&D to want to find other ways to pursue the gaming hobby with their friends.
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One of the easiest ways to do this with friends who enjoy a wide range of stories is through a universal role-playing game. Universal systems, such as Pinnacle Entertainment Group's Savage Worlds or Evil Hat Productions' Fate Core, combine a common dice mechanic with a flexible set of genre requirements. Playing universal RPG systems can reduce the energy and time needed to learn a new system, speeding players into new games quickly and easily.
The Fate Core role-playing game, published in 2013 by Evil Hat Productions, is a smart, minimalist rules set to support narrative role-playing. Its core assumptions are narrative before mechanics. Using a pool of four custom six-sided dice, Fate Core delivers flexible gameplay.
Because Fate Core's rules are heavily player-driven, it's trivial for a motivated player to break the narrative. To make Fate Core work, the GM and players must be mutually committed to the narrative. If not, the game's social contract will quickly break down, and the game will be difficult.
West End Games published a handful of successful role-playing games, including legendary titles like Paranoia and Ghostbusters. They also produced the original edition of the Star Wars role-playing game, using a house system that featured an all-d6 roll.
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The West End Star Wars game arguably saved the franchise. In the early 1990s, West End sought to expand the D6 System that underlay Star Wars into a truly universal system. Sharing roots with other universal games like Fate Core, the new D6 System was fully customizable to meet a GM's needs.
The Rolemaster system has several nicknames indicating its nature as being heavily mathematically driven. Unique among early RPGs, its math was rigorously developed before a word of the system was put to paper. Originally developed for Middle-Earth Role-Playing, the Rolemaster system was quickly adapted to science fiction, modern gaming, and even giant robots.
Rolemaster's one weakness is its love for randomness and rigorous mathematical formulae. With random chance built tightly into its bones, and a strongly defined, snarky critical hit table, it appeals to a particular subset of D&D players very well.
The system originally designed for the 1997 Buffy and Angel from Eden Studios, Unisystem quickly developed into a robust, cinematic, universal role-playing game. It expanded to cover other licensed RPGs.
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The true strength of Unisystem was shown in All Flesh Must Be Eaten. A 2003 horror-survival RPG, AFMBE allowed players to step into the role of themselves during the zombie apocalypse, emphasizing the everyman nature of the zombie horror genre. Unisystem's versatility and robust math made it a hit for players looking to add a little cinema to gaming.
The Palladium system is among the oldest universal systems still in common use. Introduced in 1981 in The Mechanoids Invasion, the first book published by Kevin Siembieda through his Palladium Books company, the system reached its full form in 1987's Robotech.
The Palladium system shows much of the artifacts of its early design and descent from Dungeons & Dragons. Centering a class-and-level advancement system in combination with a complex d20-based combat system, Palladium improved on the difficult and balky origin.
The Interlock System used by R. Talsorian Games has been used in every R. Talsorian role-playing game from 1984 to 1996 save one: Castle Falkenstein. The system was invented shortly after the company's inception in 1984 and is centered on Mekton and Cyberpunk.
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Based on an exploding 1d10 mechanic, Interlock is remarkably easy to get very high results in. The player has a one in five chance of having something spectacular happen on every roll. Whether that is a spectacular success or a spectacular failure is up to the dice. R. Talsorian collaborated with Hero Games to produce a hybrid of their two systems as well, called Fuzion, used in licensed anime RPGs Bubblegum Crisis and Armored Trooper VOTOMS.
Savage Worlds is designed around fast and intuitive gameplay developed from a broad-based, skill-derived resolution system. Released in 2003 from a revised version of the previous Deadlands RPG, Savage Worlds quickly released into fantasy pirates and pulp fiction genres.
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In the late 2010s, Savage Worlds gained licenses for two previously d20-based RPG systems: Palladium Books' Rifts and Paizo's Pathfinder. Nicknamed Savage Rifts and Savage Pathfinder, these settings became two of the most popular for the game. Savage Rifts was the first non-Palladium RPG to ever bear the imprimatur of Palladium Books publisher Kevin Siembieda.
In 1977, game designer Steve Jackson created a fantasy RPG called The Fantasy Trip for a small publisher, Metagaming Concepts. An expansion of his previous micro-wargames Melee and Wizard, The Fantasy Trip became the basis for a role-playing game that Jackson wanted to be fully flexible.
Jackson's Generic Universal Role-Playing System was always intended to have a catchier name. But as the time to publish the first ads approached in 1983, the name it had been called in the office was inextricably linked to the game. The final published title of the game became GURPS.
In 1981, Hero Games introduced a highly detailed, point-buy superhero RPG called Champions. An iconic game, Champions was the first game to introduce the idea of trading off disadvantages to gain powers in a role-playing game.
In 1990, Hero Games adapted Champions 4th Edition into a fully universal role-playing game, Hero System, 4th Edition. It delivered on the promise of a universal RPG familiar to its players. Since 1990's 4th Edition, there have been two more editions of the game, plus an abortive attempt to collaborate with R. Talsorian Games to produce a hybrid system, Fuzion, used in Champions: The New Millennium. Fuzion and its Champions edition were not popular with Hero System fans and are now ignored in Champions canon.
The d20 Modern role-playing game, which was published in 2002, started as a universal role-playing game based on D&D set in the modern era. The game branched out into science fiction with d20 Future, which replicated a greatest-hits version of the combined back catalog of TSR and Wizards of the Coast, including Alternity's default setting, Star*Drive, and the setting of Star Frontiers, renamed Star Law.
This was followed by d20 Past, a supplement bringing the system full circle by embracing a more low-key version of fantasy, including information for TSR classics Gangbusters and Boot Hill. A spiritual sequel based on the D&D 5th Edition engine called Everyday Heroes had a successful Kickstarter in 2022.
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Kate Tremaine is an author and screenwriter living in Minneapolis, MN who holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Augsburg University. Her writing has appeared on DriveThruRPG and Kindle Direct Publishing, competed and placed in national competitions, Murphy Square, and on the packages of Star Wars Armada and in RuneWars: The Miniatures Game. She has written graphic novels for Torch Graphic Press. She was an Associate Editor of Howling Bird Press’ The Topless Widow of Herkimer Street and Other Stories by Jacob M. Appel. Her creative thesis, Irkalla Derby Demons, was published in 2016. Kate plays roller derby with Minnesota Roller Derby.
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