Why simpler - much simpler - is better

[Baron Greystone]

I think it's a matter of how many rules your group requires, and enjoys implementing. I think there can also be a difference between a storytelling game, and a game of navigating a set of rules to victory. One group may even enjoy both pursuits.

 

[Neonchameleon]

To a certain degree, RPGs are a matter of taste and personal preference. We all know this. But throughout discussions on games with gamers, I almost always find that the attitudes I take for granted are so rare as to be virtually unknown. And most people's typical idea about how much complexity is a good, rarely gets defended, let alone explained to me. So I want to explain my attitude here, and maybe have a discussion about it.

At the front page of ENworld right now, you can see a guy with an animated expression talking about Dungeons and Dragons, insisting that "the game can literally be anything you want," and that "anyone who has ever played in a childhood imagination game like, I dunno a tea party, knows how to play the game."

This should be totally true.

The unfortunate fact is that it's totally wrong.

I don't know anyone else who plays with nothing but a blackboard, chalk, and a d20. I don't find people outside my gaming group who sit down outside with paper and coins and a lantern and just play. They never do. They need books. Not one, but many, books plural, full of instructions to tell them how to use their imaginations. They also need pots of dice, and miniature figures, and character sheets - oh, the character sheets they need. Not character cards, character concepts, character themes, or even character sheets in the singular with each player having one sheet. No we're talking about multiple forms filled in and stapled together like a job application or this year's taxes.

That almost all of you reading this find that kind of thing fun is something I realize. I get it. I do see that it is indeed true that most of you derive pleasure from all these rules and complications. But I want to at least point out that all of this

* is expensive,
* is time consuming to learn about,
* slows your games down,
* limits what you can do, and
* creates confusion.

I play to have an active, immersive, aesthetic, creative experience. I want to be taken away to another place, another time, and explore the beauty, and danger, and terror, and adventure and romance and glory and awe of another world.

For me, that is the whole idea of roleplaying.

And it seems obvious to me that complicated initiative protocols do not facilitate this. Things like mood music, a few candles, and the occasional illustration are what make this work. If you spend all your money, time, and energy on rules, you can't set up any atmosphere - you can't make a game that I want to play.

Right.

Taking this from the top. I don't know about you, but as a child some of my play was about as complex as Calvinball with precedents. Designing worlds, creating stories, and designing elements within those stories is fun. Stop telling people they are having BadWrongFun just because you don't enjoy it.

On the other hand so too is using the dice and the rules as lubricant in what is basically a freeform game. And this seems to be what you are interested in. I have no problem with this idea. It's often my favourite, when I'm not in the mood for high tactics. Now D&D is not set up to do this (sorry, RC and OSR fans. It simply isn't - there's always been far too much logistics involved). You also want a character sheet that can fit on an index card and contain all the things you need to know that aren't basic rules.

So what I believe is that you are playing the wrong game to suit you. I'm going to suggest a list of games below that I think would interest you. They all have two things in common:

1. If boiled down the character sheet would fit on an index card and contain everything you needed (in some cases the official ones don't because they've chosen to spread the things out - but they could)
2. All the rolls made are made using the same system. There are no separate subsystems for combat and the dice resolution system is pretty simple.

So what are my suggestions? Below.

Fate

Suggested first because it's top of the hot games pile right now. Fate Core and Fate Accelerated are the two games in question that have both the most elegant rules and the best description of them. (Older versions of Fate such as Spirit of the Century are a little clunkier). It really is a game where you can turn up with just 4 Fudge Dice/Fate Dice (6 sided, two sides marked +, two -, and two blank), a collection of post-it notes, and wing the whole thing while never ignoring a single rule because the rules of the game are all refined through use. Half the character is made up of freeform characteristics called aspects, and the game plays fast. The rules to Fate can fit on a trifold (and the more modern versions I linked are even more elegant) - and if you want a big setting for Fate, The Dresden Files is pretty awesome.

Powered by the Apocalypse

I'm going to start this with Dungeon World despite thinking that it isn't a terribly good implementation of the rules - this is because Dungeon World is designed to be very like D&D so for your players it will be the smallest jump as the characters and the objectives remain almost the same. The core mechanic in any Powered by the Apocalypse system is 2d6+stat - on a 10+ you succeed, on a 7-9 you succeed with consequences or have a partial success, and on a 6- you fail and the GM makes a "hard move" as something goes badly wrong. This injects uncertainty into the setting because not even the GM plans everything in advance (in fact in DW the GM is told to "Draw Maps, Leave Blanks" - and the other games have equivalent advice). In most PbtA games, you only ever roll when taking a risk like that (Dungeon World has damage rolls as well because it's D&D based). The games are all class-based (meaning it's simpler to play with archetypes, with a setting that you outline in the first session and all including the GM explore in play.

Other PbtA games worth noting are

• Apocalypse World - the game the system itself was designed for. The setting is post-apocalyptic with possible threats including the environment and Mad Max style motorcycle gangs. But again this is discovered in setup and play.
• Monsterhearts - IMO the best implementation of the system. High school teen drama/paranormal romance and it is awesome and very, very immersive (I've had more bleed from Monsterhearts characters than all other games combined). Your gaming group might not be one to introduce it to.
• Tremulus - Lovecraftian horror in a system where any dice roll can fail entertainingly. I haven't actually played it so I'll link to John Rogers.

Cortex Plus

Leverage is the best game I know of for running or playing cons/heists ever. Any roll can produce complications (any 1 in your dice pool), and the system is very light and fast playing. With very solid rules to allow the GM to create a target mark at the start of a session in 30 seconds flat unless they've forgotten the rulebook (which they might because they won't need to refer to it for anything else). Also in the family:

• Smallville - teen action drama starting off by creating a massive relationship map between the PCs that makes the setting you are actually playing in. Fast playing and very much more interested in the questions "Who are you?", "What do you want?" and "Who do you serve and who do you trust?" than in "What can you physically do?"
• Marvel Heroic Roleplaying - the only game I've played that makes comic book supers actually work like comic book supers.

One offs

Those were the three families of games I'd recommend you look at. But there are plenty of other games that don't fit into families. Here are some of them.

Fiasco: What can I say against Fiasco? Ah, yes. It isn't immersive. Instead it's an awesome storytelling engine to create a heist gone wrong in 1-3 hours. How does it work? Watch Tabletop. And then remember that that's a good game of Fiasco but not an especially awesome one. Right now it's in my rotation as the game I bring out whenever we're missing people.

Dread: The only mechanic in this horror RPG is a jenga tower. Which leads to awesome levels of tension in this one-shot game. Instead of a short paragraph I'll turn things over to Piratecat and the rest of ENWorld.

Mythender: Do you want to play an utter badass beating up Thor? Do you want to roll lots of dice? Then here's a game for you.

Wushu: For all your simple, destructive action movie needs. Who needs realism? Instead Wushu rewards you and gives you more dice (up to a scene cap) for describing more things, meaning that an RPG that's barely twice as long as the Creative Commons license it's released under gets interesting and detailed descriptions out of just about everyone.

Dogs in the Vineyard: A simple game where everything you need fits (as always) onto an index card, Dogs is a game about how far you are willing to go and how much you are prepared to risk before backing down. It's designed to produce escalations with both sides trumping each other until either someone gets shot or someone backs down. And do it again and again. Fast, furious, intense.

Grey Ranks: From the fast, furious, and intense, Grey Ranks is about being child soldiers in the Warsaw Uprising. Simple, elegant, and almost everyone's going to be on a tragic story arc in this pre-plotted game where you can't control the major events. See also Montsegur 1244 in which everyone is a Cathar and in the end you need to decide between you who burns, who recants, and whether one of you escapes into the night.

(I'd also nominate My Life With Master - but don't actually own a copy.)

Anyway, I'm fairly sure that in there somewhere is a game that will suit you pretty well. Have a look round and see what you think. And happy gaming!

 

[Dethklok]

Not everyone wants that though.

Almost no one in the gaming community wants simple games. Hence the sense I have that it's worth my saying "Hey, I do!"

It looks cheesy and either you have candles in a bright room and they look silly or people try to dim the light and make it hard for people to see which is important to me because my eyesight is really bad.

Understood. But I will point out that you don't need good eyesight if you play with simple character sheets and high contrast dice. You definitely don't need good eyesight if you play with coins and no character sheets.

Maybe you would like LARP?

Let me put it this way... You mentioned that candles would seem cheezy to you, right? Nasal seventeen year olds yelling "Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!" and throwing bean bags at me doesn't exactly set the mood for a captivating experience. Maybe LARP could work well, but... I've never seen it.

And it is even better when what happens in this world depends on who your character is (in form of rules and abilities) instead of what the DM things would make a good story, no matter how silly it is what happens (for when there are no rules and everything depends on DM decisions).

Derren, few rules does not equate to no rules. I've never had a player wonder why his character got knocked out.

RPG gear is expensive, yes. Time consuming: some might call that "pleasure reading."

Of course.

It doesn't have to slow games down if the game master lives up to his name.

Yes it does - unless the game master skips half the rules.

(Since I know you're also a designer, I'll add, for example, that initiative rolls rarely make sense; logically whoever has the longer weapon should attack first (from outside range; the reverse in close). Damage rolls are another example; if I roll 19 on my d20 to-hit, and roll a 1 on my damage die, was it a good hit, or wasn't it? The 19 should have already told us how effective the attack was, but it evidently it didn't, because now we're sitting around while you roll another die. Even "simple" games are wedded to these counterintuitive, time wasting concepts.)

I wouldn't always call it limiting, either, because if players have conflicting ideas of what they want to do, it might be called "balancing" instead.

Rules limit. That's why in a tea party or game on the monkey bars, if one kid decides he's suddenly turned into an alien and another says he can call down airstrikes, well, that's what happens.

Derren mentioned this; without any limitations, games can quickly degenerate into structureless free-for-alls. That's why rules are seen as beneficial, because without agreed-upon limitations, the game devolves into surrealism and nobody takes them seriously. But after you establish basic ground-rules regarding continuity and how success and failure are determined, how do more rules help for a game?

Further, some extra rules can act as imagination stimulation, which isn't limiting.

Absolutely, and really, as an outsider looking in, this to me explains why most rpgs are so full of rules. My finding that powergamers who like rulebooks and leveling up score lower on psychometric Openness to Experience than people endorsing a preference for story elements was really eye-opening in this regard. It may be a surprise that uncreative or unimaginative people would play roleplaying games at all, but they do - and if they do, then wouldn't they need as much structure as possible to help them imagine what's going on?

When your game is much simpler, you run the risk of having accusations of arbitrary GM decisions - have fun checking out THAT forum thread.

I've never experienced it past the age of twelve. In my experience, a clean, simple set of rules doesn't invite complaint because everything is cut, dried, and straightforward.

Also, a professional is less likely to commit himself to a small, simple project (lower paycheck compared to the transition costs), so don't expect too many commercial-grade, simple RPGs.

I do agree - but that's not a selling point for complexity. In fact, isn't it just the opposite?

So I'm not sold on simpler being better yet. Unless you want to be more specific with that assertion.

Though I am passionate about simplicity, simpler isn't better for everybody. Some gamers like rules, or at least see rules as having a very low cost, so complex games are what they should play. But what I do think is that the average person, and thus the typical potential gamer, is more moderate on rules.

A big reason why gamers are seen as basement-dwellers is because there is a huge starting cost to playing rules-heavy games. You have to buy the rules, learn the rules, and then use the rules, all of which requires a hard-core mindset. I have much better luck playing with non-gamers.

For my current campaign, I got two pdfs for Castles & Crusades (though Basic Fantasy is almost the same and free), every player has a single page character sheet, and needs 5 dice. Which most of them don't have, so we're sharing those that we got. None of them played the game before, so I taught them in 30 minutes.

To use the cliched expression: "Your argument is invalid".

The last time I played, it was with two gradeschoolers and a teenager. Every player had a 3x5" card and two dice. None of them had played before, so I taught them in three minutes.

But hey, if it works for you to think most people want to sit around for a half an hour while you tell them how to have fun, then you go ahead and keep doing what you're doing.

There have been times in my life when I have derived immense amounts of pleasure from hours of complex rules-heavy tinkering and optimization - of characters, spaceships, all sorts of things.

(I love game design. I've actually done that too, although our sense of what's complex might differ by an order of magnitude!)

I certainly enjoy a fast, rules-light game. But complex tactical stuff has its own pleasures, and should not be disregarded. There's a market for both.

If there were a market for the games I liked to play, I'd be happy as a clam. In point of fact, there isn't. Games are complicated by default.

 

[Neonchameleon]

RPG gear is expensive, yes.

Nope. Compare it to just about any other hobby. Books are cheap - even big D&D books. How much does anything involving driving cost? Or boating? Hell, RPGs are cheaper than knitting with the amount of yarn people get through. (Once you've bought an RPG you have it).

And [MENTION=4541]Death[/MENTION]klok, I've just made a post that lists a lot of games that are simple. And have decent marketshare in some cases. Ten years ago I'd have listed Unisystem (which seems to have been left behind but also fits). Which makes the assertion that no one wants to play them questionable. They aren't very profitable for the big companies quite simply because it's hard to sell supplements. But that doesn't mean no one wants to play them. It means they don't get big marketing campaigns - but there are several games on my list with 10,000+ sales (Fate Core, Dresden Files, Fiasco, with Dresden pushing 20,000). I'd hardly call that no market.

 

[Crothian]

Almost no one in the gaming community wants simple games. Hence the sense I have that it's worth my saying "Hey, I do!"

Then you are hanging out in the wrong part of the gaming community because I see people that want and play simple games all the time. There are plenty of simple games on the market and more being designed every year by publishers.

As for LARP if that is all you know about LARP then you know almost nothing about the wide variety and awesomeness people do when they LARP. I'm not a LARPer but I admire the lack of rules and immersion that some of those games are able to do.

 

[Umbran]

* is expensive,

With respect, I submit that the number of hours of entertainment you get per dollar invested on tabletop RPGs is pretty darned high. If you do two 4-hour sessions a month, for a year, you get

* is time consuming to learn about,

If you intend to know everything there is to know before you start the game, yes. But if you just are aiming to learn what you need to play your own character, and let the rest come as you experience it, it doesn't take all that much time.

* slows your games down,

In some games, yes.

* limits what you can do

There is a common misconception that limits are in and of themselves problematic, that "blue sky" is always preferable to rules. I don't find this to be the case. Limits also help the GM and players all stay on the same page. Limits can help spur creativity - if you can always accomplish the first thiing you think of, you never get to see the *second* thing you think of - you never have to "edit" what you're doing, so to speak. This is how some of the greatest poetry in the world is in the form of haiku and sonnet - among the most restrictive forms around.

* creates confusion.

As if working without common guidelines would not create similar or greater levels of confusion?

All in all, your list presents some perceived negative aspects of games that (I presume) you find to be rules-heavy. The implication is that none of these problems exist in rules-lighter games, or that rules-light games don't have their own issues that make them equally problematic at times.

As you say - nobody plays with just a blackboard and a d20. Maybe there's good reason for that.

I play to have an active, immersive, aesthetic, creative experience. I want to be taken away to another place, another time, and explore the beauty, and danger, and terror, and adventure and romance and glory and awe of another world.

Well, note something - not every GM is a world-class, best-selling novelist type. The GM alone may not be able to create that experience. The players alongside you may also not be up to producing what you want. A framework helps support them.

Moreover, you play for those reasons. But, since this is a cooperative enterprise, you should remember that it isn't all about you. The other folks at the table may have other things they want out of the play experience, different priorities. So, you may have to compromise somewhat.

 

[Dethklok]

Nope. Compare it to just about any other hobby.

Well, my other hobbies include

Creative writing
Designing music
Studying psychology through online journals
Reading about philosophy, statistics, and history
Posting on internet boards, and
Hiking

All of which are free. In fact, I have no hobbies that cost money, since I don't buy roleplaying materials, either. So no, one can't by any means compare roleplaying to just about any other hobby and find it cheap.

And @Death klok, I've just made a post that lists a lot of games that are simple.

Sorry I didn't see your post. I'll give those a look; if nothing else, it will keep me busy for a while!

But I think you are undermining your own position by offering these for consideration: These are definitely not big games. I've looked at hundreds of rpgs, and I haven't heard of any of them, nor come across anyone in real life who is keen to play them.

(Thanks for pointing them out, though!)

Which makes the assertion that no one wants to play them questionable. They aren't very profitable for the big companies quite simply because it's hard to sell supplements.

I think you're still making my point, here, by offering reasons that games of higher-than-generally-desired complexity dominate the market.

(It also doesn't help that I just found a minimalist gaming forum to join, with some neat looking posters, and found it stone dead.)

Then you are hanging out in the wrong part of the gaming community because I see people that want and play simple games all the time.

I've been looking around for fifteen years. And I've moved five times in that time, for a total of over 3000 miles. So hopefully you'll forgive my skepticism!

There is a common misconception that limits are in and of themselves problematic

I don't think I have that misconception; see my previous post if you like.

This is how some of the greatest poetry in the world is in the form of haiku and sonnet - among the most restrictive forms around.

That's a surprising take in this day and age. I've actually made similar arguments myself. (Though mostly I use haiku for writing scatalogical verse; I don't find haiku very restrictive at all.)

Anyway, thanks for your opinions, guys. I'm probably going to take a break from internet forums for a while - I've got to get ready for my last semester!

 

[GMMichael]

Nope. Compare it to just about any other hobby. Books are cheap - even big D&D books. How much does anything involving driving cost? Or boating? Hell, RPGs are cheaper than knitting with the amount of yarn people get through. (Once you've bought an RPG you have it).

Well, just from personal experience, I can get months of running in on an $80 pair of shoes. Or there's the used video game: Oblivion and Skyrim cost me less than $20 each.

One WotC book: $40. Maybe a used one for $25. But those are like Pringles.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Sorry I didn't see your post. I'll give those a look; if nothing else, it will keep me busy for a while!

But I think you are undermining your own position by offering these for consideration: These are definitely not big games. I've looked at hundreds of rpgs, and I haven't heard of any of them, nor come across anyone in real life who is keen to play them.

(Thanks for pointing them out, though!)

I disagree that Fate and Fiasco aren't big by the standards of the RPG market. 20,000 sales for The Dresden Files, 10,000 pre-orders for Fate Core, and 10,000 sales for Fiasco are all massive by the standards of the RPG market. If it's awards you want to signify notability, Dresden Files basically swept the boards the year it came out. Dungeon World has its own pretty big collection as does Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. Fiasco even has a Diana Jones Award (and a slightly outside the normal RPG market audience since it showed up on Tabletop).

What they aren't is old games. The two versions of Fate I mentioned , the entire Cortex Plus system, and the entire Powered by the Apocalypse family of games have come out in 2010 or later. Fiasco came out in 2009. (Fate's been going since 2003 and you might have heard of Spirit of the Century?)

I've said in the past that in the past five years RPGs have turned awesome. I'm not even slightly joking.

(It also doesn't help that I just found a minimalist gaming forum to join, with some neat looking posters, and found it stone dead.)

If it was The Forge that shut down deliberately. Most of the best parts of it decamped to story-games.com

I've been looking around for fifteen years. And I've moved five times in that time, for a total of over 3000 miles. So hopefully you'll forgive my skepticism!

Fifteen years ago I'd have been recommending CJ Carella's Unisystem, (All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Witchcraft, the official Buffy and Angel RPGs) and Grey Ghost Games' FUDGE (the system that Fate I mentioned was based on). But struggling beyond that. Both are good games but nothing like as good as we have now. And I'd hardly describe Unisystem as small. But we've done much much better IMO in the intervening time.

Anyway, thanks for your opinions, guys. I'm probably going to take a break from internet forums for a while - I've got to get ready for my last semester!

Good luck.

 

[Crothian]

Well, my other hobbies include

Creative writing
Designing music
Studying psychology through online journals
Reading about philosophy, statistics, and history
Posting on internet boards, and
Hiking

No costs? You don't have to buy a computer, hiking boots, clothes, pay for internet service, pay to access academic journals, buy books, purchase computer programs, or any any other costs related to the hobbies? I find that very hard to believe.