The Dilemma of the Simple RPG

In my experience with contemporary college game clubs, there are many younger people who have not yet tried tabletop RPGs. I was also told that many of the players coming to the evening games at a local shop have been new to tabletop RPGs. This is different from my pre-Internet, pre-video gamegeneration (Boomers), where most game-minded people were exposed to D&D because it had so little competition for leisure time.

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Another reason for the difference may be the “crunchiness” of many contemporary RPGs. That is, the fiddliness and time needed to generate a character and start actually playing the game is offputting. Then there is the difficulty of running a character because there are so many details and numbers (such as skills) involved. The rules interfere with the adventure.

Yet we continue to see the most popular RPGs loaded down with vast rulebooks. Unfortunately, the seeds of long-range destruction of any RPG edition are built into the capitalist economy.

You don't need a Ph.D. in history to know a lot can be explained if you "follow the money". To make money you need to sell product. If your primary business is RPGs you have to produce a game that is not only large but very extensible, so that you can sell additional rules. In the long run, that makes the game crunchy and unwieldy, dooms it to become too complex to appeal to the less than hard-core players.

Complexity may be a boon for some players. 3rd Edition D&D (3e) became "find rules somewhere that give me an advantage." This is a complete contrast to my advice to GMs dating back to the 70s: prevent players from gaining unearned advantages. When I GMed 3e I said "core rules only, no add-ons." When the highly-tinkered-by-additional-rules "one man armies" are present in a game, the more casual players are left behind in several ways.

"Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstien

Complex games also make the GM's job harder. As there are more rules, there's more work for the GM. The biggest problem of tabletop RPGs, compared with other games, is that GMing is work, not play. We need more GMs to "grow" the hobby, yet complex games with constant rules add-ons lead to fewer GMs available.

The typical course of events is that RPGs get more complex as more rules are added, until the entire edition is abandoned and a new one comes out. While D&D Second Edition wasn't much different than 1e, and many more or less ignored 2e (I did), each succeeding edition has changed the game drastically to help persuade players to buy the new version, coming full circle with 5e. In each case, a new edition led to lots of sales. And each was then subjected to the rising pyramid of additional rules.

Money talks. Unfortunately for RPGs, money argues for complexity, not simplicity.

contributed by Lewis Pulsipher

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[Mercule]

Rules light systems aren't necessarily universal. Often they are very thematic, i.e. gumshoe. Other times as you point out they are not.

I would not consider SW to be 'rules light'... 'rules medium' maybe. Ability selection is definitely constrained, and it also has something similar to feats anyways, edges. The thing that saves it from being more complex is really that its not class based. I always run with a lot more skills than standard (I like skills) when I use SW.

Fair enough. Most of my interest is in fantasy, urban fantasy, and sci-fi, so the light systems I've looked at would be largely for those genres.

Also, noted about SW. I had the Explorer's Edition right after it came out, but it disappeared not long afterwards. I read the book, but didn't study it thoroughly and it's been years. My recollection is probably a bit shakier than I'd thought. What I remember is that it looked like a pretty cool, flexible system, but the spells and trappings seemed somewhat limited, coming from D&D's rich magic. My group didn't have any interest in switching, so I didn't replace the book, hoping it'd turn up. I think I've moved since then, so I should just fork over the $10.

 

[pemerton]

Every feat, spell, class ability, racial feature, etc. is an exception to the rules. Yes, they still tend to follow the basic resolution mechanics (unless you go back to 1E AD&D, but that's a different matter), but they do what they do because the specific rule trumps the general.

Most spells in D&D don't follow the "basic" resolution mechanics - they tend to be automatically successful rather than requiring some sort of check.

That's one of the most distinctive features of D&D.

 

[Solomoriah]

I can run a fair game with no rules at all. No, seriously, I've done it.

That's not how I choose to play, though. Takes too much of my time adjudicating literally everything.

I've also run games with extremely minimal rules, with no complaints from the players. My old TSGS game has been used several times with PCs occupying index cards (and I realize now I need to try it with sticky notes). A bit easier, as character generation does not require my attention, but everything else still does.

Basic Fantasy is my sweet spot... enough rules to spark the imagination, not so many as to stifle it, and as the author and rights-holder I get to say no to as many supplements as I want. But a big part of why that works is because we took money out of the equation.

These are games, people. OUR games. Seeing them as "products" cheapens them. I'm not saying that buying a game is bad, but rather, that a game seen by its designers as a true labor of love rather than a product to be marketed and sold is a beautiful thing, able to be just the size the designers want without need for supplements to boost sales.

 

[JohnnyZemo]

30 minutes of Googling reveals no reference to this from Paizo. The Starfinder APs will be bimonthly, but all the Pathfinder AP references on Paizo's site still refer to them as monthly. So they are actually ramping up production overall.

No, I think they adjust their release schedule to capitalize on the products that are selling well, like any sensible business would.

I checked a Pathfinder wiki that lists all their module releases, and back in 2007 and 2008 they were releasing 10 modules a year. They actually released 20 modules between June of 2007 and December of 2008, which is about one a month.

By 2014, this was down to just four modules a year. Ditto for 2015. In 2016 they released five modules, but so far in 2017, they have not released any. Cradle of Night is scheduled for later this year.

They've expanded into other areas, like comic books and card games. But their module line is on life support at this point.

 

[J.L. Duncan]

Just coming back...

Congrats on the article Lew. Talk about a reaction!

 

[S'mon]

I like to DM like I'm the priest, not God. The rules are God, they are the final word. I think my players appreciate that as well. I can make a judgement call to move stuff along but if we choose to take the time, the actual rules answer will always be waiting for us in the books. As a group we love looking something up and seeing the way the rules solve the problem - we're all gamers, this is part of the fun for us, working within the system.

I'm currently looking to run some B/X and 1e for nostalgia purposes but one thing I'll miss about 5e when I do is all of those clean, easy to find answers. 5e has done a very good job of being both light and robust at the same exact time. The more I play it the more I appreciate this.

My own relationship to the rules is more Warlock than Cleric.

 

[Campbell]

It seems to me that "complexity" and "choice" often get conflated in discussions like this. With D&D 5E, for example, it is (to me) inarguable that the game is low complexity: but it has a high degree of choice, most of which is divorced to some degree from the complexity factor. 3rd edition and Pathfinder by contrast often added complexity through choice as part of the design decision....so what 5E did in this regard was figure out a way to continue to offer a wealth of options for people without ramping up the complexity in the process. Adding a new class in 5E shouldn't make the underlying design/mechanics more complex in 5E...and if it does, then you're doing it wrong.

This is one of the reasons I feel 5E is doing so well. Sure, it doesn't have as much choice as 3rd edition did.....but it does offer you a really compelling range of options in a smaller package, with the guarantee (so far) that those options won't increase the overall complexity of the experience.

I also think Savage Worlds is the same way, with a core experience that (in play) demonstrates how damned smooth and easy the game is. It's learning curve is very slightly higher than D&D 5E, but once learned it is like learning to ride a bike: you never forget. That plus the appeal of an "all in one" experience for $10 is kind of amazing.

3e is a game that had an incredible amount of choices to make during character design, but that same emphasis on design tended to curtail meaningful decision making during Actual Play. A significant part of the reason I am developing an appreciation for 5e as someone who was a 4e standout for a long while is the focus 5e puts on playing the game and decisions made in the heat of the moment. This is felt in the reduced emphasis on spell preparation, spells that can be cast in different spell slots for increased effect, feats that are less biased towards particular combat options, more broadly useful skills, and a focus on more active abilities in lieu of passive ones.

When it comes to complexity there are plenty of rich interactions designed into the system that provide room for more skilled and less skilled play. It's just less about stacking numerical bonuses and more about rich synergies of fairly simple systems when taken on their own. The math is not as blatant or obvious at a glance. You have to play and adapt to get at it.

 

[Jhaelen]

I certainly agree that there is a place for simpler RPGs. I recall being asked by a bunch of youngsters at one of our boardgame meetings, if I could introduce them to D&D - but they only had an hour, so it better be quick! Without any preparation and complete newbies, that's a daunting task, so I regretfully declined. But I also told them if they didn't insist on D&D being used as a system, there'd be better options to get an introduction into roleplaying, if they were really interested.

In board and card games, we’ve seen significant “dumbing down” of hobby games in the past decade to accommodate the influx of new gamers as the hobby gets larger, who are often from “party game” roots. Games on average are much simpler and considerably shorter.

I'm not sure if this is a trend I'm seeing, too. In fact I have the opposite impression: There's a much more widespread acceptance of 'advanced' and even complex board games in recent years. Also there's a quite siginificant trend towards board games supporting solo play (i.e. as an alternative to video games), and high-quality game components (artwork, minis, etc.).

I do agree, though, that there is less of an interest in very long games, and I believe this is one of the most important driving forces in improving on existing board games:
Gamers would like to be able to complete games in a shorter time in order to play _more_ games in the same amount of time, but definitely not at the cost of compromising on complexity!
And there you have the design challenge for board game developers: How do you implement a strategically and/or tactically intriguing game with high replayability and an interesting theme with a minimum of setup, downtime and book-keeping overhead?

But I could be totally mislead about these trends since my main source for board game news is BoardGameGeek, which is obviously a meeting point for the more 'serious' gamers. Still, I regularly introduce new players to modern board games, and haven't noticed any increasing interest in simple games, except as a 'filler' when there's little time left or to pass time while we wait for other players to arrive.

 

[Hussar]

I still stand by my original point - rules light systems rely far more on the GM than rules heavy systems in order to produce a particular experience at the table. Take a game like FATE. Now, that's a pretty rules light system. Thing is, there are so many areas where the DM needs to step in and adjudicate and arbitrate resolutions. Which, if you have a good DM, means that the game will run fantastic. Probably, depending on the experience you want, better than a rules heavy system. It's faster, cleaner and gets out of the way more.

However, and this is the big caveat, if the GM isn't on the ball, the system gets extremely frustrating. Misalignments of play styles at the table get exacerbated to a much greater degree because the player is expecting different results than what the GM is giving. And without a strong rules framework to rely on, there's nothing to appeal to.

Add in vague writing (which appears in any RPG) and you wind up spending more time talking about the game than actually playing it.

Look, I love rules light games. I do. I would love to play FATE or GUMSHOE, or Dread or any of a host of other light RPG's out there all the time. But, should we embrace rules light as the "better" entrance into the hobby? I'm not convinced. There's a reason that the process of getting into the hobby usually starts with things like D&D and then moves into more indie game, like, say, Blades in the Dark. These rules lighter games are a lot harder to run successfully. Hand a 12 year old a copy of the 5e basic rules and a couple of the Adventure League modules and you're off and running. Hand that same 12 year old a copy of FATE and it's going to be a train wreck.

 

[Von Ether]

What I remember is that it looked like a pretty cool, flexible system, but the spells and trappings seemed somewhat limited, coming from D&D's rich magic. My group didn't have any interest in switching, so I didn't replace the book, hoping it'd turn up. I think I've moved since then, so I should just fork over the $10.

According to SW design philosophy, "rich" can equal "redundant." That's why it has one healing power (instead of three or more) and while damage comes in different template shapes (cone, AOE, blast) but Burning hands and Acid Spray are Trappings of the same power, not two separate powers. (And that's why if a sneaky SW GM knows they are getting players who come from a DnD background usually cut and paste powers into a new document with the trappings they want already applied.)

Getting back on track for the thread; Sometimes designers create rules for the sheer demand of it, regardless of the lure of money.

The Mind Reading power was a second edition SW power that Shane fought hard against. He didn't see a need for it, mostly because his own style of gaming avoids telepathy since it's a problematic power. But his customers demanded it. (He originally whipped it up on t a forum thread as an unofficial power to placate people, but it stuck.)

On an even bigger scale, Troll Lord Games originally announced a Castle Keepers Guide simply because DnD comes in three books, but quickly backpedaled on it as they thought it wouldn't hold anything essential to Castles and Crusades play.

But fans kept clamoring for a CKG with additional (though optional) rules for years! TLG held firm that the CKG announcement was a mistake and they had no real plans to make such a product because any GM could easily tweak the game as they saw fit. (These guys were OSR before there was an OSR.)

But eventually they did it after reading forums and emails about how some GMs didn't have the time, or confidence, to do so and wanted a TLGs product to point them in the right direction.

I don't know how well it's done for them, but they keep printing it to this day.