Interesting Ryan Dancey comment on "lite" RPGs

[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.

[Nikosandros]

Originally Posted by Psion

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

Well, it's just that my experience has been quite the opposite...

Not that I mind more elaborate games... I love both 3.5 and RM.... heck, back when I had much more free time, I used to be a big fan of games such as Advanced Third Reich and Empire in Arms...

[Crothian]

I think instead of rules heavy verse rulse light we need rules easy verse rules complex. Some game are just easier for people to learn and understand and those are the ones that truely go faster.

[mcrow]

What does sales have to do with actual nuts & bolts of the game? If a small indie publisher had thrown soemthing like D&D 3ed on the market it would likely have gone OOP like many other already have. Many good or average games have gone OOP while others with much more money (and brand recognition) marketing and a lesser system have flourished.

[fredramsey]

Originally Posted by Crothian

I think instead of rules heavy verse rulse light we need rules easy verse rules complex. Some game are just easier for people to learn and understand and those are the ones that truely go faster.

You hit the nail on the head.

That is what I like about Savage Worlds. Instead of calling it "Rules Lite", I call it, "Complexity Lite". There are rules for darned near everything (including permanent injury, mass battles, etc.), but the rules are easy to digest and work with.

You bet the people from WOTC are going to jump in there and say these games are inferior. But we are not compelled to listen to them. It is they who need to cater to our needs if they wish to continue ad naseum.

[scadgrad]

As an avid C&C Evangelist, I just wanted to add an interesting observation. I ran a game this past Saturday w/ my old gaming group down in TN. We get together about once every 2 months or so and they've continued to play 3.5 while I've moved on to a C&C/3.X hybrid. I was frankly amazed at how long it took them to make characters and 2 of them only had to update characters from a previous C&C sessions (moving them up a few levels). I think much of it had to do w/ the fact that the game is in many ways so different from the "no holds barred" version of 3.5 that they play w/ every supplemental rule imaginable being allowed into the mix.

Surprisingly, the one player who'd dropped out of 3.X had his character ready in a snap. In the future, the work around is for me to help each person w/ their character rather than hand out a couple of PHBs and letting them have at it. Familiarity w/ the rules makes it go much quicker and the advantage to the rules-lite approach is that it's just easier to get familiar w/ a smaller rules set. The gang in my current group can bang out characters in just a few minutes. We playtested a mod for TLG the other night and made characters in about 20 minutes or less and off we went. So, IME Andre's comment is dead on. The sessions really pick up as the group grows more familiar with the rules set.

In the end, I think Dancey & Mearls aren't getting the point, or rather, they've already arrived at the point and are just fumbling around for a way to say C&C and True 20 are pieces of dung without so much as coming out and saying it. I do applaud their sense of decorum though.

[sword-dancer]

Originally Posted by 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..

What test would that be?
How many publishers(like Orkworld or Waste World(Manticore) are gone down becaus of ecenomivcal reasons, not because of their quality?

OTOH D&D i think as DSA had the great advantage of being supported by a majority of players.

Question: How old is sorcerer or CoC.


Amber is perhaps the only exception I can think of (and again, that's a genius design)

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Originally Posted by Psion

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

I had to laugh.

[BiggusGeekus]

Originally Posted by mcrow

What does sales have to do with actual nuts & bolts of the game?

It's the only ojbective measure of a game's sucess. There are many, many subjective measures, but sales is the only real objective one.

[GMSkarka]

Originally Posted by fredramsey

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

Well, to be....very charitable about it, he does have a history of, shall we say, "adjusting" procedures to arrive at the outcome he'd prefer.

In other words, take all of this with a grain of salt the size of Jupiter.

[SweeneyTodd]

Originally Posted by Jupp

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.

Near as I can figure, he means that game designers are responsible for balance and realism, and all that stuff needs to be figured out ahead of time by experts. Which I think is bunk.

Example: A character is trying to jump a ravine to grab a rope, in the rain. If you can't look in the book to find out what the right modifiers are, then it's on the head of the GM to come up with a target number, and maybe the players will argue, or it'll be too high or too low, or whatever.

To which I go, what the heck game are people playing that this would be worth an argument? If it's dramatic to have a chance of failure, have one, if it's not, don't. Does it really matter if this fictional character is better at grabbing a wet rope than someone would be in real life? Considering that the GM invented the rope, the ravine, and the rain, is there any advantage to measuring the distance and cross-referencing the guy's Jump skill, versus picking a DC that represents how hard you want it to be?

And if picking a difficulty consists of "on-the-fly game design", something that's supposed to be left to the experts, how is it that any of us have run anything other than a published module?

I think the more interesting questions are things like "how do I come up with interesting characters, situations, and challenges", which is something complex rules don't address anyway.

Originally Posted by Jupp

...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) :\

Exactly. The social situation at the game table is the key. If your players enjoy arguing for whatever reason, they'll argue. And the GM could say "Rocks fall, everyone dies" at any time. Neither party does these things, because they want to have a good time, and they can work together as people. If your group can't work together on a basic, person to person level, complex rules just paper over the hole in the wall. If anything, simpler rules make you go "Yeah, there's a hole there, what are we going to do about it?"