Which is better: a game with bad mechanics but a cool concept and setting...

Which is better: a game with bad mechanics but a cool concept and setting, or one with solid mechanics but the concept and setting are bland?

You take the good setting and play it with the good mechanics.

One with solid mechanics. Setting is the easiest thing to customize in a game.

Most people house rule everything anyway. Mechanics are more guildlines. A good setting will make or break the game.

this, so long as the mechanics are solid you can use them for any concept they're suited to

Good mechanics.

Setting quality means nothing if you're constantly stopping the action to parse out the rules. You can just transplant the good setting onto the good system.

if you're houseruling everything, you're playing a shitty system

Bad mechanics and bland setting combined is the blatantly correct answer.

>not using house rules to talior a game to you and your players.
Its like you don't play tabletops.

One that fails at both but actually has a playerbase for some reason. See DnD.

Good Mechanics. Look at Eclipse Phase. That game just drools in amazing setting stuff, I can't find anyone who wants to play it's crazy d100 system. It's why I am working on porting it to the Genesys system.

>Which is better: a game with bad mechanics but a cool concept and setting, or one with solid mechanics but the concept and setting are bland?

Well, Shadowrun and WoD make their fame being the former so....

>not wanting to minimise the changes you have to make by finding the most appropriate system to start from

here's your (you)

The latter, because (unless you're actually a game designer) it's a lot easier to create your own setting than your own system.

As long as the system isn't inexorably tied to the specific setting, the GM can just use the good system and make their own setting, while a good setting with a bad game just leaves you wishing you could play in the setting without the bad system.

I'll take a cool setting over good rules. Not that hard to lift a setting & refit to better rules.

WoDfag here
This man speaks the truth

Which half of a helicopter is better?

I would say to try /epg/, but nobody in there plays Eclipse Phase.

It happens, but more often I've seen the setting lifted for other rules because the stock system is generally considered to be a fucked up mess. The Fate conversion is better.

The latter. Unless the setting is really really specialized(like Continuum or something) you're going to get a better experience out of running the cool setting in a generic system.

The second doesn't exist. Good mechanics are good if they adhere to a fictional concept you're trying to convey, in RPGS.

The front half.

>Setting is the easiest thing to customize in a game.
What am I reading?

The game without false dichotomy.

The top half.

mechanics.

Any faggot can make up mediocre setting. It takes effort, time, and testing to make good mechanics and even that may provide undesired results.

It's not a false dichotomy, though? Just because the OP's giving two options doesn't mean he thinks a game with good fluff and mechanics can't exist. Why are anime posters so dumb?

The half with the functional parts.

Losing the extraneous weight might actually prove more beneficial

I want to say that solid mechanics are more important, but to be honest if the concept and the setting are both bland, I'm not very likely to even pick up the rulebook so it doesn't really matter how good the mechanics are.

there are way too many settings I wish I could play in but it would be too much work to convert the stats/mechanics to another system

Bad mechanics, good concept

Look at battlefront - good mechanics, shit ass game with no good storyline.

Morrowind - shit ass mechanics, awesome storyline. I'll take Morrowind thanks.

>battlefront
>good mechanics

eh...

a true reply? he didn't say it's the easiest to change fundamentally, but it sure as hell is the easiest to customize

I would give ANYTHING to fuck Emma Stone's face

It depends:
Are the 'good mechanics' something really innovative?
If yes then i'll welcome it over a game with interesting setting and poor rules, otherwise into the trash it goes. We have enough generic and specific rulesystem to fill every taste and need. Adding another bland but functional system is like pissing in the ocean.

Is the setting really cool and detailed?
Good for you but with shit mechanics (or even with good but bland ones) it wont make a dent through the wall of fictional settings (used for games or not).

This.

I really enjoy the mechanics of both. Shadowrun just needs to be better organized.

I could see someone enjoying the mechanics of Shadowrun, it was built on a strong skeleton and just got a snowflake problem (too many small thing pile up until it becomes almost unplayable)

OWOD though? You have shit taste user.

I too really enjoy the core mechanics of shadowrun, I just wish there wasn't some much unnecessary details and specifics. It'd be a much better game if they just distilled the rules into a few pages of general rules, gave a few tips and suggestions on how to arbiter them in common specific circumstances, then paired it with a good and well-organized character option and gear compendium.

mix and match?

the game is eternally fucked because every class runs on its own snowflake subsystem.