Unpopular opinions go here

[Lanefan]

I wouldn't say that. Ive noticed that there's a growing appetite for more indepth systems lately; the appeal of rules light/storygaming is burning out, if slowly.

4e and its derivatives could very well come into their own if that trend continues.

I'm not sure the second follows naturally from the first, here.

If anything, I'd think a growing appetite for more in-depth (by which I assume you mean rules-heavy) systems would lead more to a 3e/PF1/d20 revival; and though my scope is limited I've seen nothing to indicate such a trend.

 

[Aldarc]

I run mostly rules light games. D&D 5E is not light by any stretch of the imagination. Games that are light fit on a few pages max. A page sometimes. A few paragraphs. A business card. Etc. That’s not D&D 5E…at all.

5e D&D is generally a rules heavier game that WotC has convinced people in the hobby to be "light" and that other games are just as complicated as 5e to run, if not harder.

 

[Gradine]

Maybe it's just a matter of context. 5e could be called "rules-light" when compared to say, 3rd and its offspring. But then, so could some wargames I've seen played, so <shrug>

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I generally despite the proliferation of (largely unnecessary, almost always gatekeeping) RPG jargon, but coming up with a clear scale about the lightness/heaviness of rules would be a real boon for gaming.

5E is somewhere in the middle, and is only "light" if one intentionally excludes a lot of prominent RPGs. It is (a little) lighter than some other editions of D&D, though.

 

[payn]

Maybe it's just a matter of context. 5e could be called "rules-light" when compared to say, 3rd and its offspring. But then, so could some wargames I've seen played, so <shrug>

Im a little surprised the old "rules medium" hasnt reared its head yet. Personally, I dont believe such a thing exists. I think a lot of folks believe that D&D is rules lite/medium its because they have decades of playing it. They have lost the context of picking up a rule book for the first time. All this experience makes a lot of this second nature to folks so its assumed to be lighter than it actually is.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Maybe it's just a matter of context. 5e could be called "rules-light" when compared to say, 3rd and its offspring. But then, so could some wargames I've seen played, so <shrug>

That's right. Unless your so-called "RPG" has all the complexity of the unholy love child of The Campaign for North Africa and Phoenix Command, I don't want to hear you calling something heavy.

Heavy should only be used when discussing the guitar stylings of Tony Iommi, and rules that require at least a PhD in math and a PhD in history to even think about playing. Unless you're resolving combat through a combination of vector calculus and extensive knowledge of Hittite tactics, I don't want to hear about.

 

[Emberashh]

Sorry, can't accept, "here's a bunch of bad rules, we advise you not to use them" as rules lite.
....
I mean, only D&D...

Bad is subjective. The only strict difference in design on this issue between 5e and something like Gurps is that it is subtractive rather than additive.

I run mostly rules light games. D&D 5E is not light by any stretch of the imagination. Games that are light fit on a few pages max. A page sometimes. A few paragraphs. A business card. Etc. That’s not D&D 5E…at all.

I can write the only mechanic that isn't just content in 5e on a business card.

Im making that distinction for a reason.

I'm not sure the second follows naturally from the first, here.

If anything, I'd think a growing appetite for more in-depth (by which I assume you mean rules-heavy) systems would lead more to a 3e/PF1/d20 revival; and though my scope is limited I've seen nothing to indicate such a trend.

3e heritage DND isn't something I characterize as indepth; it often looks like it because of how bloated the content is, but theres not actually all that much depth to the mechanics.

I generally despite the proliferation of (largely unnecessary, almost always gatekeeping) RPG jargon, but coming up with a clear scale about the lightness/heaviness of rules would be a real boon for gaming.

5E is somewhere in the middle, and is only "light" if one intentionally excludes a lot of prominent RPGs. It is (a little) lighter than some other editions of D&D, though.

I actually don't find the jargon all that useful as its trying to make a shortcut to understanding that isn't strictly possible.

At best, these jargon terms only work as a general descriptor and you need to look at what people are actually saying to understand.

Game design isn't an intuitive process. It can't be boiled down into soundbytes.

 

[overgeeked]

I can write the only mechanic that isn't just content in 5e on a business card.

Im making that distinction for a reason.

If you mean "roll 1d20 + modifiers vs DC" then you're missing everything that makes it D&D and D&D 5E with that kind of reductive presentation.

I'm sure you are doing it for a reason. But you're still factually wrong. D&D 5E is not rules light. Simple as.

 

[Tony Vargas]

D&D, to slighty lesser or greater extents, has always been the sort of game that adds content by adding rules. Each new spell, race, sub-class, background, monster or magic item, expands the rules systems, making the game "heavier."

That's not unusual or anything, very few games pay the up-front cost in complexity to create foundational systems that can cover any sort of future content without additional sub-systems.

 

[Emberashh]

If you mean "roll 1d20 + modifiers vs DC" then you're missing everything that makes it D&D and D&D 5E with that kind of reductive presentation.

Tends to be the rub with a game thats billed as the Do Anything game, and is more often than not, played in precisely that way. Content doesn't actually matter, even when its rules.

And I wouldn't be so hasty at calling my assessment reductive. It is a very carefully considered conclusion, and not one thats ignoring all the parts you think are being ignored.

Each new spell, race, sub-class, background, monster or magic item, expands the rules systems, making the game "heavier."

And if the game can be played without any of them, you then have to assess what actually matters.

When a game is designed through a lot of Content that is self-contained and isolated from everything else, none of those things can matter, because they don't affect anything other than themselves.

Also has to be said that efficiency matters for a lot too, and arguably much more so than just the amount of content or rules in a game. 5e benefits greatly (in the same way a game like PF2E does, in fact) from the simple design direction that limits how much of the game you actually have to engage with at any given point.

They just tend to also suffer because they don't make that obvious, creating an artificial barrier to learning as people become daunted by the great pile of books to read that they only need to read less than 1% of, if that, to just play.

Not a problem limited to just these games, to be clear. Most, arguably all, TTRPGs have that issue, precisely because they have created this illusion that rules and content are the same thing, when they're not and shouldn't be.