Interesting Ryan Dancey comment on "lite" RPGs

[ThirdWizard]

Some people can't play rules-lite easily. Take someone who loves their rules-heavy system and put a rules-lite system in front of them and the game will slow down because it goes against their gaming style. Take someone who loves rules-lite systems and give them a rules-heavy system and they'll slow down because now they have all this extra information to use that they arn't used to.

To thine own RPG be true.

[fredramsey]

You know, the more I read about this guy, the more I think he is a total boob.

[SweeneyTodd]

I backed up that thread a bit to see where the discussion had originated, and it's interesting. Here's Dancy's original comment, about "20 minutes of game in 4 hours":

Many RPG sessions consist of a very limited amount of "roleplaying game", surrounded by a lot of argument, community dialog, eating, and other distractions.

Dave Wise, who was one of my Brand Managers at WotC, and was a talented writer and editor for TSR, is married to the person who first made the observation, after watching his gaming group, that D&D seemed like 20 minutes of fun packed into four hours - which was her way of saying "shouldn't this game be more fun, considering the work and time everyone seems to be putting into it?"

I agree with her. It should be more fun.

We suffer the inefficiencies of the current RPG systems becuase they're better than other options: cops & robbers, playing house, or improv theater. But that doesn't mean that we should be satisfied. A lot of the work that went into 3E was focused on making the game more consistent because consistency is a hallmark of efficiency. 3E is just demonstrably easier to play than 2E because of this level of consistency. Even so, we may have produced a net effect of subtracting 5 minutes of "non fun" and adding four minutes of "fun" at best. That still leaves a massive gap for improvement.

To which someone responded:

The 4 hours/20 minutes issue is the first one a lot of gamers who've switched to lighter systems cite, and one that is certainly not as ubiquitous to gaming as it is to D&D (Except insofar as D&D is ubiquitous in gaming)

This is certainly not a lightness uber alles assertion, but I think it's unreasonable to consider the only solution to the time compression is to go all the way to house/(Cops&Robbers)/improv.

And that's when Dancy made the point that started this thread.

I found that very interesting. And I think it means Dancy's really missed the mark here. If your group spends 80% of their time doing non-gaming related things, that's a social issue, and one that rules of any complexity are utterly unsuited to resolve. (He pretty much admits that the quote above -- saying if they removed 5 minutes of arguing in favor of 4 minutes of rules consulting, it was a net win)

Personally, I think this is all social contract stuff. Our group sets aside the first half hour of a session for pizza and socializing, and we wait till we have all the kibitzing out of our system before we get down to business. (We also regularly get together for non-gaming related activities.) And we just plain *don't* fight over rules, because, not to be too blunt, but we don't have friends who use argument to get what they want.

You can't adjudicate that everybody gets along and focuses on the game, but designers could make some attempt to discuss the social side of gaming. Even things like advice on how to keep people focused and hold their attention would help. But I think that the fact that Ryan's pretty much saying rules-heavy is their preferred way to deal with non-rules issues is extremely telling.

[Andre]

The quote implies that the groups had not used the specific rules-lite systems before he observed them. Rules-lite systems rarely show their benefits in the very first session, but in the 3rd, 4th, 5th sessions.

Additionally, I think Mr. Dancey ignores a major benefit of most rules-lite systems: less prep time for the GM. I remember being able to stat out dozens of encounters in 1E in the same time it takes me to stat out a handful in 3E. In fact, the suggestion I hear most often to speed up prep time is to ignore most of the rules about characters/creatures and just stat out the most important pieces - in other words, create one's own rules-lite version of 3E.

[fredramsey]

GM prep time was big reason I recently switched from 3.5 to Savage Worlds. With D&D, I had to spend two evenings, use E-Tools, a word processor, several books, etc. to get ready for a session.

With Savage Worlds, I lie in bed with a pencil and a spiral notebook, most often with only one book, and it takes me about an hour.

There are things that speed up play as well, but GM time is the most important reason for me.

[mcrow]

I think there is a pretty good chance he has never played a lite system before. If he did he would realize that the learing curve and prep time is much lower in lite systems. Lite systems will typically have less realism than d20, but d20 is not exaclty the most realistic system either.

[der_kluge]

I think this has a lot to do with the players and the GMs.

3rd edition has more rules than say, C&C, and unless the players know all those rules, play is going to get bogged down in looking them up.

At least in C&C, the CK has more flexibility in being able to just adjudicate on the fly, versus having to memorize a lot of different rules.

It's not better, though, necessarily. Some people like consistency.

[Silverleaf]

Originally Posted by DaveMage

The question is, what is "rules-lite" and what is "rules-insufficient"?

Some games that claim to be rules-lite (and perhaps it's some of these games that Dancey observed) but they really may be "rules-insufficient".

For me, I like having things defined simply for consistency. In 1E/2E, I didn't always remember what I ruled for a particular circustance, so I like that in 3E so much more is explained - just so I can be consistent.

It's all hot air, he's just trying to model a "study" after a premeditated conclusion. The guy wouldn't know anything about a rules-light RPG if it hit him on the head.
Back in my early teens, we used to play rules-light games at school (between classes) because it avoided carrying lots of junk around, was easy to teach, and the game moved fast. I used the Fighting Fantasy engine oftentimes, it's got only 3 stats and uses 2d6 for all task resolution. I didn't care much about consistency of rules, all that mattered is that we had fun. I wasn't a game designer, or even tried to be one. I was just a kid with some imagination. And that, combined with the tiny FF ruleset was plenty enough to run fun games in very short timespans, even teaching the rules on-the-fly if I had to. For that matter, character creation took as long as it takes to roll 2d6 three times.

[Jupp]

Hehe nice try from Mr. Dancey but I dont buy it according to the experience I had with 3E D&D/1e/C&C.

That character creation is taking as long in rules lite systems and rules-heavier systems I cannot believe. Char creation in D&D vs. C&C is like two worlds. Where in D&D it can take hours (no joke) I have yet to see someone having longer than 30 mins for a C&C character. And of that time 15-20 mins is to make a decision on what class it should be and what race the player wants to play. That leaves 15-10 min for rolling the dice and filling out the char sheet.

Also the argument that there are too many arguments in the game has to be specified. If you put a group of long time 3e players together to have a session of C&C you will sure as heck run into that kind of situation because those players are just not used to that kind of gameplay. On the other hand if you give them a few sessions and let them get used to the new way of gaming then the whole thing could look totally different.

The argument that the DM has to be much "better" in rules-lite systems cannot be taken as it stands as well. I mean, in systems like D&D you have to be a walking rules encyclopedia to have a fluent and fast gameplay in your session, otherwise you are left sitting at the table searching in every book for that rule. I would say a DM that has all the important 3E rules in his head is as hard to find.

The term "on the fly game designer" is also quite strange. It's not that rules lite DMs always create their adventure on the fly. They prepare adventures and encounter as everyone else does, at least most of the time. Perhaps he meant that those DMs have to "wing it" more often but if that is the case he somehow doesnt understand completely how rules lite systems are played.

2) Game experience is not portable. What you learn with one GM may be exactly the opposite of how the rules are applied when you switch GMs. This creates network inefficiencies. Network inefficencies are bad.

That's the best one. I have been a player in about 4 different 3E games that went for 2-3 years before switching to 1E or C&C and not a single DM gave me the same game experience as the other one. Roleplaying is not defined by rules, it's defined by how the players interact with the gameworld and how the DM (re)acts toward the players and the gameworld. You can have as many rules as you want, it doesnt make a good DM out of a bad DM or a good game out of a bad game(world) :\

[Nikosandros]

Hmmm... I utterly disagree both with Mr. Dancey and with Mike Mearls original post.

I have GMed rules light games (often even free-form games) many, many times and things have always been fast and smooth...

I'm also looking forward to a new edition of RQ and I hope that Mongoose will do a good job.

Both Dancey and Mearls seem to think that in a perfect world everybody would play some variant of D20 and every game publishers should just tweak D20 instead of having its own system...

Much as I like D20 I can't help but wonder how anyone with solid experience in RPGs can really think that...

[Psion]

Boy, this one made the rules lite advocates jump up and yelp, didn't it? "It's not troooo...!"

Well, I'm not so sure I can agree completely with Ryan on this one... I have a hard time seeing WEG SW chargen taking as long as 3e Chargen. But then, it's a do-once activity and I find the end results of 3e much more satisfying.

But I would have to agree I find the supposed benefits of rules light games greatly exagarated, and think that the role of consistency in running a smooth game is undervalued.

[mearls]

Here's a simple test:

Name a "rules lite" RPG that remained in print and actively supported by a publisher for more than 5 years.

I think only Amber (a completely genius design, BTW) meets this criteria.

In the current marketplace, I can't think of a single rules light game that's thriving. What I think is interesting, and this ties in Ryan's point that people *want* rules lite gaming to succeed, is that I suspect a lot of people think a game is rules lite when it's not.

What's even more interesting is that if you look at the industry over the past 30+ years, only rules heavy games have found and sustained audiences. Amber is perhaps the only exception I can think of (and again, that's a genius design).

[Gentlegamer]

Sales and publishing library is the standard for quality of game-play? Dancey wants us to buy into the "rules heavy" mindset so he keep us buying things we don't need, but think we do.

[Nikosandros]

Well, it is certainly true that you really don't need a lot of support material to play rules lite games... as a matter of fact, many of my experiences, as I wrote previously, were with free form games.

BTW, while Amber is a diceless game, I think it is in fact quite rules heavy...

[sword-dancer]

Originally Posted by Jyrdan Fairblade

I certainly would disagree with Mr. Dancey as a whole that rules-lite systems fail to deliver what they promote. Sounds like someone trying to justify their increasingly rules-heavy system..

I could second that DSA3 had neither very complicated nor a lot of rules.
A combat between 2 Fighters of reasonable skill with the sword could take hours
Attack-parry-Attack-parry-Attack-parry-Attack-feint-parry-Attack-not parried-scratch and so on... damage was 1d6+4 for a sword minus Damage absorbing from the Armor, which meant about 3 Points of damage against 30 Hitpoints a level one and 50+/- at level 5.
Oh yes every
Fireball 5 or 7d 6 and for every meter difference to the center of explosion one die was taken from the damage.
If you´ve rolled your stats, chosen your class there were 25 to70 rolls to made to better your skills, every level.

Having said that, I'll agree that character creation and dispute arbitration probably take roughly the same amount of time, rules-lite or rules heavy

. I don`t see it primary as rules heavy vs rules light to argument/discuss the characters which were playable in a special campaign.