Genres

Yags is designed to be a flexible game system that can be used with a wide variety of settings and genres. This approach can give an unsatisfying feel in some cases, especially if the game system isn't designed for a particular type of playing style which it is being shoehorned into.

For this reason, it should be made clear that Yags is designed for realistic/cinematic styles of play, where characters are either relatively normal people, or at best highly skilled and above average individuals, but with no special super powers. It should be possible to run stories similar to Die Hard or Kill Bill, but something like X-Men or The Matrix could be difficult.

Setting

The Setting represents the background details, and may be independent of the genre. For example, a horror game may be set in Victorian England, modern day New York city or aboard an interstellar mining vessel.

There are several settings designed for use with Yags.

Genre

The Genre represents the general style of the campaign, and though it can limit the type of settings, it is relatively independent. A genre might be Science Fiction, Horror, Fantasy or Super Heroes.

The Baroque Cycle, a series of books set in the 17th/18th century is pretty close to being science fiction, despite being historical. Shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer are fantasy, though set in the modern day.

Technology

As with many other generic game systems, Yags using the concept of Technology Levels (or 'TL') to represent what sort of equipment and skills are available to characters in a campaign. TLs range from 0 (stone age) through to 8 for the modern day. Futuristic technologies are represented with TLs 9+, but are left to individual campaign settings to define.

Campaigns which diverge from historical technology progression (such as Steam Punk for example) are not accounted for, and again it is left to a specific setting to cope with this. Though a single number may seem simplistic (and it is) to represent a culture's level of technology, anything more just adds complexity and still can't easily represent the full range of possibilities.