Unpopular opinions go here

[Thomas Shey]

I'd bet money that something like 99% of AD&D as actually played was lighter than AD&D as written. Even Gygax ignored heaps of his own rules when he ran the game. In my experience most AD&D games were a mish-mash of OD&D, B/X, BECMI, and AD&D rules. The first three are all far, far lighter than AD&D proper.

Of course this is true of most rules-heavy games, too; often what makes rules heavy games is not density of commonly used rules that everyone needs to know, but that they take the time to provide rules for situations that may come up rarely or not at all within a given campaign.

 

[Aldarc]

That is exactly what I said.

But @Lanefan was “words lighter” ergo his was better.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I did. Your (unstated) assumption is that "rules that people may not use, even if they are part of the core game, are not rules."

Which is certainly an opinion, but is not one I share. Rules are, for lack of a better word ... rules.

Just like if someone was to say, "D&D is a game that doesn't have spells," I would look askance at them, even if the unstated assumption is, "Because it's possible to play D&D with an all-fighter party that never encounters magic items and never runs into critters with magic, it is possible to play without spells, therefore there are no spells."

You seem to want to differentiate the "core gameplay loop" with "other rules." And that's fine, for you. Perhaps you have an advanced idea (as I alluded to earlier) about the difference in complexity. But you can't simply define "rules" as "not rules."

Yeah, this is an example of someone who appears to be, honestly, either begging the question or demanding other people use his definitions of what's relevant, and being unable or unwilling to accept that many of them are, well, not willing to accede that to him.

 

[Emberashh]

rules that people may not use, even if they are part of the core game

They're not a part of the core game.

There is only one.

Just like if someone was to say, "D&D is a game that doesn't have spells," I would look askance at them, even if the unstated assumption is, "Because it's possible to play D&D with an all-fighter party that never encounters magic items and never runs into critters with magic, it is possible to play without spells, therefore there are no spells."

Bad and inaccurate analogy.

But you can't simply define "rules" as "not rules."

Context matters, especially in English. One of its shortcomings, that makes it harder to learn for many, is that words can be identical and mean very different things depending on the context.

Hence, the reason for differentiating Content from Rules. Content can be rules, but they aren't the Rules.

 

[Lanefan]

Nope. If a particular bit of content isn't in active use, it has absolutely zero bearing on the game; it is in a fact a waste of time to learn, memorize, or otherwise "apply" it when it literally isn't beingnused.



Again, pay attention to what I am actually saying.

Getting into debates over words is useless. Engage what Im actually saying.



I don't think I need to explain to you what the word content means.

In this case, actually, I think you do; in that what you see as content and what I see as content are, I suspect, a very long way apart.

Knowing the difference between rules and content is pretty vital for designing any kind of game. Chess (and Checkers) are games without any content whatsoever, and Chess in particular is considered one of if not the greatest single game of all time. (At least in the West)

The names and usual shapes of the pieces in chess - content, or rule?

That one can play a variant where en-passant doesn't apply - does that make en-passant content or rule?

The point was that good games are still good games even when stripped of all their content. Aside from the extra step of even skipping the rules, this is fundamentally what FKR advocates believe in.

The core resolution rule of DND can be the single mechanical backbone for a pure roleplaying experience where all content is just created on the fly; and in fact often times a lot of GMs introduce people by creating such a game to ease people into the dearth of content these games offer.

So the bare essense of D&D is the play loop (DM describes situation, player declares action, resolution mechanics engage, DM narrates results, return to start) where the resolution mechanics consist of d20+modifiers vs a target.

Have I got this right?

That, amongst other issues covered elsewhere, is what plays into the assessment. 5e is rules light because at the end of the day, the complexity of its content is 100% opt in. The game does not break if you drop any of it or even all of it.

I don't call that rules light but I do call it robust design, in that you can in theory drop-add-change things without breaking the game (though IMO in practice you very much can break 5e by dropping-adding-changing the wrong things).

And as said, yes, none of this is intuitive. Thats game design for you. Thats wjy.Pokemon was compared to Rock/Paper/Scissors. That comparison was made because its the easiest way to see the difference between a game and a dearth of content for said game.

If you want another phrase to chew on if you just can't cope with the phrase Im using, its the difference between the core gameplay loop and literally everything else about the game. The latter doesn't make for a game, and the former never needs the latter to be fun. (Assuming it was designed well, anyway)

Part of the confusion here might be because in D&D the core play loop can't exist without what I see as content (a character, a setting, etc.) to hang it on. A player can't declare an action without having a character in play for whom such action can be declared and in fact can't even generate a character without knowing the rules-as-content defined parameters that character must adhere to, nor can a DM narrate anything when there's no content on which to base that narration.

 

[Aldarc]

Mentioning your bachelor’s degree as part of any appeal to authority is 9 out of 10 times next to worthless.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Hence, the reason for differentiating Content from Rules. Content can be rules, but they aren't the Rules.

You do realize at this point that you seem to be the only person in this discussion who agrees with this, right?

 

[MichaelSomething]

If you want a rules lite D20 game, there's always Micolite D20.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You do realize at this point that you seem to be the only person in this discussion who agrees with this, right?

He isn't. Others just haven't chimed in. I made the point earlier that I would weigh something like spells differently than core rules when calling something rules light (for me a lot of that is going to come down to density of the spell entries and how the mechanics work). I think a lot of people make this distinction as well. Also if a game does have spells individually listed, it is going to come down to things like how involved the process of casting is, how involved the process of acquiring spells is, etc.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Hence, the reason for differentiating Content from Rules. Content can be rules, but they aren't the Rules.

Just to be clear. Rules are rules. Unless the rules are content. In which case rules are not rules. But content is also not rules- lore, for example, is certainly not a rule!

So some of the content is a rule, and some content is not a rule, but no content are the Rules. Because the Rules are, um, Core Rules. And Core Rules are only those things that you find in ... the Core Rulebook? Or that happen on a regular basis in gameplay?

So spells in D&D aren't Core Rules(tm) because they aren't in the PHB, or they aren't normally used in a D&D campaign. Or ...

Gotta say, after reading this ... the question whether you can make words manage to mean so many different things? Alas, I lack the facility to be master of such an imprecise art.