Different philosophies concerning Rules Heavy and Rule Light RPGs.

[PrunellaUK]

I think what they mean is consistency in rules application. It has zero to do with the narrative.

Zero to do with the narrative? I'm not sure I agree with that. I see mechanics and narrative as being far more integrated.

I've noticed some people in this discussion trying to separate mechanics from 'fluff'. I don't hold with this. I see them as part of a seamless garment. There's a reason why TTRPGs put humans in the loop to manage these things and interpret rolls into narratives.

So when I play a D&D combat and it's just the same attacks and spells being spammed in familiar patterns, I see a poverty of narrative. Lighter systems have always given me far more variety, because we ask the stakeholders - players and GMs - to do far more heavily lifting.

 

[Aldarc]

Zero to do with the narrative? I'm not sure I agree with that.

Agree with what? How people are using the term "consistency" in terms of rules application? Because that is how "consistency" was being used in prior discussion. The problem is that there is now equivocation on "consistency" being used to mean "everything exactly the same," "a story that repeats itself," or even here where you imply that "consistency" entails the spamming of familiar patterns. This sort of inconsistency with the meaning "consistency" seems counterproductive for discussion.

 

[payn]

Zero to do with the narrative? I'm not sure I agree with that. I see mechanics and narrative as being far more integrated.

I've noticed some people in this discussion trying to separate mechanics from 'fluff'. I don't hold with this. I see them as part of a seamless garment. There's a reason why TTRPGs put humans in the loop to manage these things and interpret rolls into narratives.

Not fluff, narrative of what’s happening before you. For example, jumping a pit, or across two buildings, or over a bin fire, etc.. The narrative builds the obstacles, while the rules govern the application. Using the same jump rules doesn’t prevent narratives or make them all the same.

So when I play a D&D combat and it's just the same attacks and spells being spammed in familiar patterns, I see a poverty of narrative. Lighter systems have always given me far more variety, because we ask the stakeholders - players and GMs - to do far more heavily lifting.

I do think a heavy combat system is going to set expectations of a routine experience. Some folks are after that and lean heavy into the game aspect of an RPG. I don’t think it limits the overall narrative in the end.

It comes down to knowing how to make a system work for you. If you prefer a flexible, yet vague guideline, that’s a fine preference.

 

[dragoner]

Barring D&D being what it is, where the easist way to play it is combat oriented; social rules don't need to be heavy, because we are social animals, so the social play is lighter, more natural. In my games the play is probably 90% social encounters, and the rules I wrote for it are mostly a way to randomize the encounters, and the simple reaction table lifted from D&D.

 

[Umbran]

Consistency is synonymous with repetition. Who wants a story that repeats?

No, it isn't. This take on it is reductive.
The desired consistency isn't on the story level, it is on an action level.

Like, if I try to jump a 20 chasm today, and try to jump the same width chasm tomorrow, the DC should be the same. Running a mile today, and running a mile next week under the same basic conditions should be the same sort of challenge.

The consistency is desired so that, when thinking about the "game" portion of the RPG, the player can make informed decisions. If the GM keeps changing how they adjudicate the rules, the player never knows their chances.

 

[Arilyn]

If you see something in a gamestye that is so extreme the game would fall apart through sheer boredom or chaos, you are probably misunderstanding the rules and expectations.

 

[PrunellaUK]

Like, if I try to jump a 20 chasm today, and try to jump the same width chasm tomorrow, the DC should be the same. Running a mile today, and running a mile next week under the same basic conditions should be the same sort of challenge.

Why are you repetitively jumping chasms of the same width? What kind of story is this?

I'm not trying to be obtuse here. This gets to the root of game and story.

If my PC tries to jump an X difficulty chasm today, that's one thing. But if they encounter a similar chasm in the story, then that story is not much cop if the challenge remains the same. In a good story, I would expect to make that second attempt whilst burdened, or hindered, or otherwise penalised. I'm contrasting my first jump, which was hard, with a second attempt, which is dramatically more difficult - a product of rising action and increased tension.

This is basic GM stuff. We mess with difficulty all the time for reasons of story and drama.

 

[Theory of Games]

Why are you repetitively jumping chasms of the same width? What kind of story is this?

I'm not trying to be obtuse here. This gets to the root of game and story.

If my PC tries to jump an X difficulty chasm today, that's one thing. But if they encounter a similar chasm in the story, then that story is not much cop if the challenge remains the same. In a good story, I would expect to make that second attempt whilst burdened, or hindered, or otherwise penalised. I'm contrasting my first jump, which was hard, with a second attempt, which is dramatically more difficult - a product of rising action and increased tension.

This is basic GM stuff. We mess with difficulty all the time for reasons of story and drama.

Different GMs run their sessions differently. Some of us don't lean heavily into the narrative elements of Story®

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Why are you repetitively jumping chasms of the same width? What kind of story is this?

I'm not trying to be obtuse here. This gets to the root of game and story.

If my PC tries to jump an X difficulty chasm today, that's one thing. But if they encounter a similar chasm in the story, then that story is not much cop if the challenge remains the same. In a good story, I would expect to make that second attempt whilst burdened, or hindered, or otherwise penalised. I'm contrasting my first jump, which was hard, with a second attempt, which is dramatically more difficult - a product of rising action and increased tension.

This is basic GM stuff. We mess with difficulty all the time for reasons of story and drama.

I feel like you're being unkind for effect here, and there's an element of "competitive GMing" in the fairly strongly implied "Well you must be a bad GM with a bad story if the same thing happens twice!".

I do get where you're coming from, and I suspect I am more interested in games that work in a way that drives drama rather than being reliable, but what @Umbran is asking for is not fundamentally unreasonable, nor is it actually indicative of bad GMIng or a bad story or whatever, and I don't think it actually helps your argument to take that particular tack (I mean I can talk but...).

The reality is, in certain games, something fairly similar does happen every few sessions - might be as simple running back the way you came. The GM is hardly in full control of the story - the PCs are a huge influence. So it can be helpful, in certain kinds of game, particularly ones leaning into a more simulationist or gamist mode, rather than a more narrativist one, to have some kind of consistency here.

The rising action etc. is not something that automatically applies, nor even, in my experience actually reliably makes TTRPGs better. It's something more applicable to videogames, frankly, where the designer is in much more control.

 

[Celebrim]

I read @Celebrim's statement on "fudging" with respect to PbtA-style games as referring to when a player character makes a Move and the result of the die roll requires the GM/facilitator to make some kind of Move in response, where what that looks like within the fiction are largely within the GM/facilitator's purview, subject to constraints imposed by the rules of the game on the GM/facilitator. I hope Celebrim can clarify if I've misunderstood.

That is correct.

That does seem to me to be a rather idiosyncratic definition of "fudging", which usually involves ignoring the outcome of a die roll.

I do agree that I'm stretching the use of the term which usually involves ignoring a hidden dice roll that would suggest under the rules some particular outcome and instead replacing the result with one of the GMs preferences. But I protest that I'm not stretching the term that much, because I think we'd also agree that it would be fudging to change the villains hit points (up or down) secretly so that the villain died only at what the GM considered the climatic or dramatic moment (and exactly at that moment). I think you'd agree that would be within the province of things we normally call "fudging". I think you'd also agree that it is likewise fudging when reading the notes and it specifically says a spell wouldn't work in this situation, or that loud noises would summon additional reinforcements from an adjacent room and either ignoring that completely or altering the number of prepared reinforcements so that the level of challenge is what the GM would prefer at that moment (either to not overwhelm the party or to challenge them if they've been winning "too easily"). In other words, it's fudging when the GM allows his desires and wants for the situation to override what we'd understand as the rules or the natural consequences of the rules.

A game that is PBtA tries to avoid secret rolls and sometimes even prepared fiction ("myth") in order to avoid this practice, but it actually grants the GM far more leeway to insert their own preferences at the moment than traditional play does. At least in trad play, when the GM fudges they are aware that they are fudging and may feel a twinge of guilt or wonder if the haven't prepared badly for the situation. In a PBtA game the GM is more or less explicitly empowered by the rules to adjudicate any situation according to their own preferences at the moment, subject to the fact that a player hasn't thrown the 10+ required for the player to have narrative control over the outcome. This allows the GM to do all the tasks they were trying to accomplish when they fudged in traditional play. A GM running a PtBA game can decide based on their own whim and preferences to withhold and minimize or exaggerate consequences whenever the result is 9 or less. Since such rolls are fairly common, and since they are so empowered, they may not even consider whether or not they are fudging by minimizing or exaggerating the negative consequences of a roll.

Yet judged on the basis of outcome, the PtBA GM is every bit as fudging as the Trad GM that ignores dice, or rules, or prepared notes or text when they won't be "good for the game" and making the same sort of internal judgment calls to ramp up the difficulty or hold back the difficulty based on the current struggles or lack thereof. To a large extent, that 7-9 range gives the GM more ability to insert their own preferences than anything. One of the reason that I hate ill-defined "partial successes" or "failures with a drawback" is that the are so broadly defined as to be meaningless. And again, watch that FATE playthrough for moments when the GM is feeling empowered to just make things up to heighten the challenge when the players are winning "too easily".

I would go as far as to say that the entire PBtA experience depends on processes of play a Trad GM would see as fudging subject to the idea that the PBtA is fudging to empower the narrative that the players have signaled that they want. In other words, the PBtA is always supposed to be cheating for the good of the players, and because he's empowered explicitly to metagame in this manner then it's not "cheating". The fiction comes first as it were, which is very much the reason theoretically GMs are fudging in trad play, to maintain the best fiction for the table.