Rules-Satisfying

[Sword of Spirit]

I think in many cases preferences for rules-light or rules-heavy miss directly addressing one of the most important aspects--which I'm calling "rules-satisfying."

Rules-satisfying games have precisely the degree of rules necessary to create exactly the experience you want them to.

I find I'm often disillusioned when I see a game specifically advertised in a prominent way as being rules-light. In the majority of my experiences that amounts to a game being overly simplified for my tastes. Either too much is left for abstraction without any firm foundation, or the rules are utterly lacking in information that is going to come up constantly unless the GM is so extraordinarily skillful he can run a setting without actually having a game to run it with.

On the other hand, a more rules-heavy approach often turns a role-playing experience into an exercise in high search and retrieval processing and unnecessary degrees of detail.

In my own design I find myself risking hitting the same problems. I occasionally find I need to stop, step back from the details, and ask myself, "have I created an unnecessary new system? Can these functions be collapsed into an already extant portion of my design?" or conversely realizing, "Can I really model what I planned with just this level of detail?"

I'm occasionally frustrated in my design when I hit that clash between a desire for speed and simplicity, and the difficulty of squeezing what I need together. (This is even more difficult due to my commitment to small numbers, low granularity, and as much as possible avoiding the use of numbers when defining characters.)

What I'm looking for are rules-satisfying systems.

What is rules-satisfying can vary a great deal, but I think a few main points can express a lot of it.

1. Search and handling time shouldn't feel like it slows down the game. I can't think of any role-playing experience where the table considers pausing for 3 minutes while someone looks up something a good thing. In fact, I can't think of any role-playing game where pausing for more than 30 seconds to look something up is a good thing. Occasional pauses allow our brains to rest, but anything longer than a few seconds can probably wait for the next point where the whole table takes a 5 minute break or a longer intermission.
2. You should have exactly the information you need at any point. A character sheet shouldn't include numbers that are never used for anything. Rules that are necessary to express a situation that can arise in the game need to be in the game and easy to find.
3. You shouldn't feel an urge to houserule in order to patch the system. Either that means you aren't satisfied with what the game is all about, or it means you are trying to use it for something it wasn't intended (which is a recipe for dissatisfaction).
4. Playing the game should feel like it is intended. If it's supposed to be a game of tense horror, you shouldn't need a spreadsheet to do math for you in the game, or a series of charts to frequently consult, or even have to flip through several books looking for info (unless there is a timer and not finding the info means doom). If it's supposed to be all about the story, then there shouldn't even be a game system. It should have a story system instead.
5. It should be coherent throughout. This may naturally follow from the others, but nothing should feel out of place in the system, just like nothing should feel out of place in the connection between the system and the setting(s).

Having never really experienced a game that perfectly satisfies my (perfectionistic) standards in terms of its rules, I'm wondering if others of you have fared better.

Have you found a game that really does everything you want it to in a satisfying manner? That doesn't actually have "just that one part" that you houserule, or gloss over, or leave out to get the desired experience? That plays as smooth as ice and lacks any portions of the system that slow it down, or otherwise make it difficult to reach what you're trying to? Or that doesn't feel like you are jolted out of your experience during play due to the rules in some way?

 

[amerigoV]

Savage Worlds hits on all of those for me. Sometimes it gets tagged as a rules light game but its not, its just lighter than D&D/Pathfinder. Its tagline is Fast, Furious, and Fun and all the design of the rules align to that goal. Even after playing 4 or so years now the elegance and Rules-Satisfying aspects continue to surprise and please me.



I will comment on the No Urge to Houserule - There are a lot new Savages that have the urge to change the core of the system (you see them pop up on Pinnacle's boards). Its really due to them coming from something like D&D/Pathfinder - SW does things in subtly different ways that people want to "correct". Of course, after you play it for awhile you see why its done that way (and it turns out for that system, its a much better way - but that is not to say D&D/Pathfinder's ways are not good within their own system framework). So inevitably we Savage veterans have to settle the newcomers down until they play it for awhile before they start tinkering*

* you are certainly encourage to modify the system to fit the genre / style of game you want to play. This is separate from "this system handles this situation wrong" type houserules.

Having never really experienced a game that perfectly satisfies my (perfectionistic) standards in terms of its rules, I'm wondering if others of you have fared better.

Well, if you are a perfectionist, I guess you are doomed to live the life of disappointment. Is Savage Worlds perfect? No, its has its flaws and challenging points. You can go to the One-True-System thread from a couple of months back and see the back and forth there. But for my group and especially for me, it really does hit on all cylinders.

 

[GMMichael]

I think in many cases preferences for rules-light or rules-heavy miss directly addressing one of the most important aspects--which I'm calling "rules-satisfying."

Rules-satisfying games have precisely the degree of rules necessary to create exactly the experience you want them to.

Sounds highly subjective. And similar to the search for the One True System. Yet intriguing...

1. Search and handling time shouldn't feel like it slows down the game.

This requires either a 3-page rulebook, or rules that are simple enough to grasp in every player's head.

2. You should have exactly the information you need at any point.

Perhaps...a rules-summary card? Like that in Three Dragon Ante?

3. You shouldn't feel an urge to houserule in order to patch the system.

Again, OTS. Either a system is so rules-heavy that there's an optional rule for everyone, or it's short and flexible enough that players can make judgment calls that seem fair. Yet, some people would call those judgments "house rules." Or GM tyranny.

4. Playing the game should feel like it is intended. If it's supposed to be a game of tense horror, you shouldn't need a spreadsheet to do math for you in the game, or a series of charts to frequently consult, or even have to flip through several books looking for info (unless there is a timer and not finding the info means doom). If it's supposed to be all about the story, then there shouldn't even be a game system. It should have a story system instead.

Or a battlemech system that has technical tables for big, technical robots? I know D&D 3.5 has a decent feel to it, but that feel dwindled when Pathfinder doubled the size of character sheets (even while eliminating some skills and streamlining combat maneuvers).

5. It should be coherent throughout.

You mean, like one skill system that applies to all skills? Instead of a fixed progression, varying by class, for attack bonuses? Or instead of a thievery table, usable only by thieves, that uses percentage scores instead of a d20 system?

I think rules-light systems are more in danger of breaking this rule than the heavies, just because it's hard for a rule (or subsystem) to feel out of place in a sea of rules.

Have you found a game that really does everything you want it to in a satisfying manner? That doesn't actually have "just that one part" that you houserule, or gloss over, or leave out to get the desired experience? That plays as smooth as ice and lacks any portions of the system that slow it down, or otherwise make it difficult to reach what you're trying to? Or that doesn't feel like you are jolted out of your experience during play due to the rules in some way?

Hard to do in a roleplaying game, because roleplaying games are expected to do so much. You know what games feel seamless? Monopoly. Chess. These games give you satisfying rules, but limit your experience in exchange. If you make the experience limitless, every player is going to want a slightly different experience, and then it becomes very difficult to satisfy everyone.

But to answer the first question: I'm working on it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

What is rules-satisfying can vary a great deal, but I think a few main points can express a lot of it.

1. Search and handling time shouldn't feel like it slows down the game.
2. You should have exactly the information you need at any point.
3. You shouldn't feel an urge to houserule in order to patch the system.
4. Playing the game should feel like it is intended.
5. It should be coherent throughout.

Having never really experienced a game that perfectly satisfies my (perfectionistic) standards in terms of its rules, I'm wondering if others of you have fared better.

Have you found a game that really does everything you want it to in a satisfying manner? That doesn't actually have "just that one part" that you houserule, or gloss over, or leave out to get the desired experience? That plays as smooth as ice and lacks any portions of the system that slow it down, or otherwise make it difficult to reach what you're trying to? Or that doesn't feel like you are jolted out of your experience during play due to the rules in some way?

I've never found a rules system that does exactly what I want for all RPGs I want to run because that's impossible. To be rules satisfying for something the game needs to focus on that thing. On the other hand there are a number of games I play that I consider fit all the criteria or at least only very slightly miss them. All of the games I can think of that fit came out no earlier than 2009. In approximate descending order of popularity (I'm not sure about #2 and 3):

Fate Core/Fate Accelerated. There's a reason that Fate is lying behind only D&D on the Hot Games Tracker, and Fate Core is the most elegant of them all and keyed to pulp action for larger than life characters. Powerful, flexible, simple, and delivers exactly the experience it promises.

Fiasco. I'm never sure whether this is an RPG or a collaborative storytelling game. Either way it can have 3-5 vaguely creative people create a Cohen Brothers movie in about the time it takes to watch one.

Cortex+ (or at least all four games in the line: Smallville (OOP), Leverage, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (OOP), Firefly). Cortex+ is a definite cousin of Fate and is much woolier, swingier, and more chaotic (and uses polyhedral dice) but has the same elegance of mechanics, rules that if you push them will fit onto a side, and characters that tell you all you need to know. All four Cortex+ games are very different because they reflect different shows. Smallville is tangled emotional drama, Leverage competence porn and con artistry, Marvel Heroic comic book physics, and Firefly entertaining fish out of water/incompetence.

Apocalypse World. How to sum up Apocalypse World other than it's roleplaying in a normally Mad Max style post apocalyptic setting; the character classes are extremely evocative, and the moves used for task resolution point you straight and hard at the fiction (there are also a very limited number of them). The MC is told not to prepare in advance. Simple rules, unified task resolution, very evocative characters. There is a "Just one part" here, however - the Hx value between two given PCs resets to 0 when it hits +4 (and you gain experience).

Monsterhearts. Apocalypse World has a lot of hacks of it - I've even written a few myself (none of the hacks I've seen use Hx). Monsterhearts is the best of them even if the premise sounds ridiculous. Teenage Monsters in the style of Twilight or Teen Wolf. It's a game about personal horror and being a monster not in control of yourself in a way the WoD could only dream of. It's also a game about growing up and overcoming your limitations, turning your weaknesses into strengths.

 

[innerdude]

I think in many cases preferences for rules-light or rules-heavy miss directly addressing one of the most important aspects--which I'm calling "rules-satisfying."

Rules-satisfying games have precisely the degree of rules necessary to create exactly the experience you want them to.

I find I'm often disillusioned when I see a game specifically advertised in a prominent way as being rules-light. In the majority of my experiences that amounts to a game being overly simplified for my tastes. Either too much is left for abstraction without any firm foundation, or the rules are utterly lacking in information that is going to come up constantly unless the GM is so extraordinarily skillful he can run a setting without actually having a game to run it with.

I completely agree. To me, when someone pushes "rules lite" as a key "feature" of a rules system, it's nearly always a turn-off. In my experience, most of the "rules lite" stuff I see bandied about is generally little more than a core resolution mechanic wrapped in minimal character advancement packaging. For fans of these kinds of systems, I'm sure they're fantastic, the point of using a system like this is when you're a group that's willing to hand over dramatic amounts of power to the GM. If your group trusts the GM, then "rules lite" is probably a great experience. For me, I simply want more from my systems than freedom to improvise.

On the other hand, a more rules-heavy approach often turns a role-playing experience into an exercise in high search and retrieval processing and unnecessary degrees of detail.

... Snip ...


I'm occasionally frustrated in my design when I hit that clash between a desire for speed and simplicity, and the difficulty of squeezing what I need together. (This is even more difficult due to my commitment to small numbers, low granularity, and as much as possible avoiding the use of numbers when defining characters.)

This I also agree with, though to be honest, I'm more about a system achieving its aims satisfactorily than being attached to any arbitrary distinction of "rules lite" or "rules heavy."

The advantage of "rules heavy" is that when done well, having structured rules actually makes it easier at times to produce satisfying play. When the rules can handle multiple variations of similar situations, it becomes easy to adjudicate on the fly. You have enough core guidance from the rules, but can change applicability.

On the whole I tend to think I should prefer a "heavier" system to a lighter one . . . but to be honest, none of the "heavier" systems I've looked into held enough appeal in trying to actually learn and run the system. I'm pretty much DONE with D&D, probably almost permanently; GURPS has just way too many system-specific niggles that bug me to ever use it; from what I understand HERO is close enough to GURPS that it's probably in the same boat. To be honest I've never really given the BRP / d100 systems, a la Runequest, a fair shake, but I don't necessarily want "ultra-realistic" and "gritty" so much as I want consistency and transferable applicability.

What I'm looking for are rules-satisfying systems.

What is rules-satisfying can vary a great deal, but I think a few main points can express a lot of it.

1. Search and handling time shouldn't feel like it slows down the game. I can't think of any role-playing experience where the table considers pausing for 3 minutes while someone looks up something a good thing. In fact, I can't think of any role-playing game where pausing for more than 30 seconds to look something up is a good thing. Occasional pauses allow our brains to rest, but anything longer than a few seconds can probably wait for the next point where the whole table takes a 5 minute break or a longer intermission.
2. You should have exactly the information you need at any point. A character sheet shouldn't include numbers that are never used for anything. Rules that are necessary to express a situation that can arise in the game need to be in the game and easy to find.
3. You shouldn't feel an urge to houserule in order to patch the system. Either that means you aren't satisfied with what the game is all about, or it means you are trying to use it for something it wasn't intended (which is a recipe for dissatisfaction).
4. Playing the game should feel like it is intended. If it's supposed to be a game of tense horror, you shouldn't need a spreadsheet to do math for you in the game, or a series of charts to frequently consult, or even have to flip through several books looking for info (unless there is a timer and not finding the info means doom). If it's supposed to be all about the story, then there shouldn't even be a game system. It should have a story system instead.
5. It should be coherent throughout. This may naturally follow from the others, but nothing should feel out of place in the system, just like nothing should feel out of place in the connection between the system and the setting(s).

Having never really experienced a game that perfectly satisfies my (perfectionistic) standards in terms of its rules, I'm wondering if others of you have fared better.

Have you found a game that really does everything you want it to in a satisfying manner? That doesn't actually have "just that one part" that you houserule, or gloss over, or leave out to get the desired experience? That plays as smooth as ice and lacks any portions of the system that slow it down, or otherwise make it difficult to reach what you're trying to? Or that doesn't feel like you are jolted out of your experience during play due to the rules in some way?

As @amerigoV mentioned, Savage Worlds is that system for me currently. It does exactly what I want my system to do, with enough player options to remain satisfying for long term play, while maintaining a consistent, cross-genre, situationally-applicable elegance that make on-the-fly adjudication a breeze.

That said, it's not my One True System. My One True System would ultimately use the die-step mechanics of Savage Worlds crossed with a bell-curve probability distribution, and would definitely NOT use the Savage Worlds shaken / wound / soak mechanic.

But Savage Worlds does everything else that I'm looking for so well that it's easy to overlook those aspects, especially when compared to the alternatives.

Your Point #5 above is increasingly a big deal to me. One of the biggest things I discovered after hopping off the "WotC Brand of D&D" was just how incoherent it can be at times. After watching Crafty Games rip the 3.x engine apart, then put it back together into something dramatically more consistent and elegant with Fantasy Craft, I realized that "coherence" is something that's hard to fully pin down, but remarkably tangible when present in rules presentation. Savage Worlds also happens to have this sense of "coherence," or "elegance" in Caterpillar-tractor-sized spades. At this point, as much as I dislike most of GURPS' general gameplay "tropes," I'd still probably rather GM it than 3.x or Pathfinder now, because it's at least coherent in its approach (though I'd infinitely rather GM SW, FC, One Ring, or Fate instead).

 

[chaochou]

Apocalypse World has been my favourite game since its release in 2010 and an absolute blast to play. If there's a 'huh' moment it's only when I get in a muddle over something trifling - like the combat rules for a gang of bikers or something. But generally, you can play this straight out of the book and it rocks.

I would say FATE but there are so many versions and I like the look of some more than others. Diaspora is great, another game that hits the sweet spot. Dresden Files pretty good to. Haven't looked at Fate core.

Burning Wheel: A modular game. There are bits of it I've never used. There are bits of it I will never use. But it's designed like that. The base system works a treat and then there's all the extra bits to flesh out whatever scene needs it. Definitely not rules-light. But a game that gets better as you learn its nuances, for sure.

 

[Li Shenron]

This requires either a 3-page rulebook, or rules that are simple enough to grasp in every player's head.

I think it can be done well, through a combination of the following:

- rules that are used all the time can be in fact memorized with minimal effort
- rules and numbers for occasionally recurring situations can fit on a DM's screen
- rules that don't fit in the DM's screen occur very rarely if ever in the course of a campaign
- description of character abilities completely fit into the character sheet
- description of monsters abilities completely fit into one page (or two pages facing)

The problem really arises when you have too many exceptions, too many modifiers, too many rules interconnections, and PC or monsters abilities which reference stuff somewhere else.

 

[Avaru]

"Rules light" is truly scary. I like narrative stuff, but that does not mean I have to deal with vague rules. I actually try avoiding it because I really dislike discussions on the table which arise from "light" rules. Sure, having to check at ten different pages for modifiers is in no way better, but there IS something inbetween.

What's also important to consider about the "weight" of rules is how familiar everyone is with them. If your players spend time with a system, they get faster. They even might specialize so you can put away the books and just ask around.

The problem really arises when you have too many exceptions, too many modifiers, too many rules interconnections, and PC or monsters abilities which reference stuff somewhere else.

This. Though I have to say, being GM in many systems over the last years taught me many existing systems can be bent and changed to achieve the op's "Rules-Satisfying" feeling. Just tell your players to ignore certain things and most importantly: get them to roll BEFORE they check absolutely everything. If there's a combat situation and your character is not sure if he can hit the target because of 13 modifiers but has a good feeling that he will, just let him roll. If it's a terrible roll, it's most likely a miss, so no need to go over all the rules. If it's a great roll, the opposite applies.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Have you found a game that really does everything you want it to in a satisfying manner?

Nope. Not even close. I've seen games that bring something to the table but need to be monkeyed with (3e, various other d20 offshoots, the Cortex games), games that I wouldn't play but which bring some ideas to the table for other systems, and games that bring nothing to the table and really aren't worth discussing.

In my own design I find myself risking hitting the same problems.

I can't say that I do. Creating something comprehensive takes a lot of time and energy, and a lot of trial and error, but it's eminently doable if you have the time. I think most semi-intelligent people can at least substantially rewrite an existing game so that it is legitimately much better for their purposes than it was out of the box.

I'm occasionally frustrated in my design when I hit that clash between a desire for speed and simplicity, and the difficulty of squeezing what I need together.

Definitely a fundamental challenge. I think it's important to only have rules that serve a clear purpose and cut the rest, which sounds simple but isn't in practice. Certainly all versions of D&D (some more than others) are bogged down by rules that don't serve a purpose.

1. Search and handling time shouldn't feel like it slows down the game.
...
2. You should have exactly the information you need at any point.

Sounds good.

3. You shouldn't feel an urge to houserule in order to patch the system.

This I don't agree with. Much as I dislike various games' inadequacies, customization is a large part of the process. I think a really well-written game has a lot of the houserules already built in as variants or through open-ended writing, but I don't think there's ever going to be anything that works perfectly right out of the box for everyone. Moreover, houseruling is an important part of the process of learning to be a DM.

4. Playing the game should feel like it is intended.

Okay.

5. It should be coherent throughout.

Definitely.

 

[Campbell]

I'm not really big on the rules weight dichotomy. I've never been a one game person and doubt I ever will be because I like a variety of play experiences. What's important to me is the emotional experience of playing the game. I kind of feel like most traditional games encourage a play experience that is more analytically based and miss the emotional weight of the experience.