Different philosophies concerning Rules Heavy and Rule Light RPGs.

[Celebrim]

Meaning we don't spend a lot of time worrying about backstories or consistency. A player can make up something new about their personality or backstory and if it contradicts something we all roll with it. Or collaboratively suggest ways to resolve the apparent paradox. Eventually it settles into something the player enjoys playing, and a story they enjoy telling.

Or not. Sometimes a character ends up with an extensive backstory and unique personality/motivations/goals/etc.. But other times it never gets beyond, "Um....elf with a bow?"

Then I protest you made a big deal about how different you are from my game when in fact you aren't very different at all. You don't really have a novel process of play, you are just very slightly more ad hoc about things than I am in achieving the result of the player seeing the character as more than just numbers on a sheet. We both generally allow backstory to be extended and personalities to evolve in some fashion based on discoveries in play. You allow backstories for players that want them. You just imagine that I'm the sort of GM that isn't happy with something like, "I'm a pirate and I'm in it for the money, but Gutboy is my buddy from way back and I'm not going to leave him behind.", if the player isn't really interested in having a backstory.

As for the assertion about attachment to character, I have no real basis of comparison. I'd say it mostly depends on the personality of the player (I have one goofball that seems to like to die), but that in general the players I have get REALLY attached to characters and having one die is super painful and the longer the character has been around the harder it is. And having been that player, losing a character you've invested so much into can be a gut punch.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Then I protest you made a big deal about how different you are from my game when in fact you aren't very different at all. You don't really have a novel process of play, you are just very slightly more ad hoc about things than I am in achieving the result of the player seeing the character as more than just numbers on a sheet. We both generally allow backstory to be extended and personalities to evolve in some fashion based on discoveries in play. You allow backstories for players that want them. You just imagine that I'm the sort of GM that isn't happy with something like, "I'm a pirate and I'm in it for the money, but Gutboy is my buddy from way back and I'm not going to leave him behind.", if the player isn't really interested in having a backstory.

As for the assertion about attachment to character, I have no real basis of comparison. I'd say it mostly depends on the personality of the player (I have one goofball that seems to like to die), but that in general the players I have get REALLY attached to characters and having one die is super painful and the longer the character has been around the harder it is. And having been that player, losing a character you've invested so much into can be a gut punch.

I think the idea of preplanning everything about your character to the point the GM can declare that you’re not playing them properly is very different from allowing the player to establish what they like as needed.

 

[pemerton]

I imagine your players are rules lawyers. Which I expect is the most extreme of the heavy rules people. I like a simple streamlined system but I don't mind options though players should be able to opt-in or out on complexity.

Who is this addressed to?

 

[pemerton]

I think the idea of preplanning everything about your character to the point the GM can declare that you’re not playing them properly is very different from allowing the player to establish what they like as needed.

The bit that I've bolded is pretty striking to me. Is that a thing?

 

[pemerton]

I would say that it’s still pretty unfair. I mean, it’s a game. The more that’s unknown by the players and the slimmer the chance they are able to learn it, along with the severity of the consequence, all of that plays a big part.

Now… fairness may not be a concern. I mean, many would argue that the world’s not fair, and so they design their dungeons or other encounters accordingly. But I think that not caring about fairness is a different thing than if a game is actually fair.

In the context of classic D&D play - and some other prep-heavy beat the module play, like say some approaches to CoC - I think that sticking to your prep is probably a necessary condition of being fair, within the parameters of that sort of RPGing. Sometimes glosses on, or elaborations of and from, prep will be necessary ("What colour is the ceiling?" is a time-worn example), but departing from the prep is tantamount to breaking the game.

Whether what has been prepped is, itself, fair, depends so heavily on context I think it's hard to generalise. Is a mystery that can only be solved by understanding post-Newtonian physics fair? That would depend on your players. Are rot grubs fair? That would depend on how the play of that game, up to that point, has approached the looting of dead bodies.

In a Torchbearer 2e session last year, the players - in order to minimise the turning of the "grind" - declared that they were moving past a pond in the cavern they were exploring, to investigat another aspect of it. So I didn't mention to them the gold that was - as per my notes - in the pond, which they would have seen had they looked. (Of course I taunted them about it afterwards - and there is even a logic to how that out-of-character knowledge might be laundered into in-character knowledge, as they left the cavern by levitating up above the pond.) I think that was fair within the parameters of Torchbearer. But were they first-time RPGers, or even first-time Torchbearer players, I might have adjudicated differently, and had they not been old friends I probably wouldn't have taunted them about their misplay.

I'm not really setting out to contradict anyone here, but just to elaborate a bit on how I see prep and fairness as being connected, in a certain sort of RPGing. Move to a different RPG - eg in my case Prince Valiant, or Burning Wheel, or even Classic Traveller - and my approach to prep, framing, consequences etc will of course change appropriately.

 

[pemerton]

Yeah, but I don't have any reason to suspect your people are particularly typical in this regard, especially in the D&D community, where how to engage with people who are playing their characters smarter or more charismatic than the numbers say they should be is a topic of conversation for a reason. Among other things, everyone being on the same page here is not universal by any stretch, and there are still plenty of people out there effectively playing in token stance.

This is where I tend to agree with @Bill Zebub upthread: people should play games they want to play, with other people who want to play them.

Maybe it's because I'm used to adapting my play to the RPG I'm playing - just as, in any other form of game, I try to play the game in front of me rather than some other game that I project onto it - but I find the idea that there is only one way to play an RPG pretty unconvincing, As if there is just one way to approach the relationship between stats/attributes and fictional positioning, such that (eg) the approach my Classic Traveller game uses must be the right one or must be the wrong one.

Of course when it comes to D&D as published WotC is not going to state a rule about whether or not stats are part of fictional positioning - they want to maintain the appeal of the game to all comers - but each particular table, in a given episode of play, will need to reach some consensus. And neither approach is a priori to be preferred or dismissed, I think, although the not fictional positioning approach is (I think) easier to reconcile with how ability checks, skill proficiency etc work in contemporary D&D.

 

[bloodtide]

If they meet a draconian that looks different, then they could expect it may die differently. This doesn't require the DM to tell them how it will die, just that it looks different (and all the draconian types do look quite different) to telegraph that things may go differently.

While somethings might be "oh the red one uses fire" color codes to make things easy for the players.....most things would not have a set, easy to see look. Plenty of creatures and foes would not look all that different in the "easy to tell way".

Other approach is more adversarial, where a DM may decide that because the players are switching to ranged weapons to avoid a weapon being stuck for a minute, they will suddenly make the Bozak draconian explode with a 60 foot radius of effect. As a player, I would be aggravated by such a situation, and as a DM would expect my players to be aggravated as well. If you have a group though where everyone is on board that such things may change to heighten risks /tension or the like, more power to you, but if you have players getting upset, they may have quite different expectations.

I agree here.

And sure a player stuck on "red always means fire" will be all bent out of shape when the 'red one' has an ice attack. And if there are five 'lizard humanoids" and each one explodes with a different effect just melts poor players brains.

If there’s some reason that the DC on Saturday’s chasm is different, then the GM should communicate that to the players.

I don't understand why. For any encounter I will describe things for the players, but I would never go out of my way to "communicate reasons" how "different" everything is....for some reason. Sure the Chasm of Doom on the 655th Layer of the Abyss has a higher jump DC then the chasm nearby the goblin cave. But the vast majority of other chasms look fairly plain and alike, but still might have a various ranges of DCs.

Why do you say that? It seems to me to be a pretty foundational element of RPG play. The GM should be consistent in application of rules, the world that’s portrayed should be consistent… it comes up in all kinds of ways.

It does not make any sense to me. As nearly everything in a RPG that is encountered should be different, not just the same things over and over and over again.

Maybe your players don’t trust you? Maybe that’s why it doesn’t work for you? Maybe… if your history of posting here isn’t some Ali G level bit but is actually an accurate portrayal of your games… you’re not a very good GM? Or at least, not for the players you have? Maybe… just maybe… instead of fighting every single suggestion made to you, instead if arguing against every example of play that works differently than yours… maybe you should listen?

Maybe not?

Because I can tell you for a fact that what I suggested does work. Especially if you go one step further and tell them why the DC is different. “oh right… it’s DC 25 because of the slippery conditions due to the rain”. That usually resolves the issue entirely.

I agree the easy way out is to just tell the players everything up front. The game does run much smoother if the GM holds each of the players hands and guides them. This is one of the things that makes my game style so hard for many players. I will describe the narrow ledge, the rain and the water on the ledge.....but it is up to the players to figure out all that might change the DC.

There’s this impulse that many GMs have… and it seems particularly prevalent among folks who primarily have run D&D. I think it’s likely a byproduct of older elements of play… with the dungeon as puzzle and players marshaling their resources to solve the puzzle… and it carries over through to today even though that’s not typically the way the game works anymore.

I'm not sure dungeons are puzzles?

That impulse is to withhold unknown information at all costs.

I would say simply not giving away tons of game information often. Typically the players and characters won't know most game information...nearly always.

Anything that isn’t immediately obvious to the characters must be withheld until the proper step is taken by the players. They don’t find the secret door because they didn’t say they search the mantle specifically. Or they don’t hear anyone down the corridor because they didn’t ask for a Perception check. And so on.

I would not agree with either of your two examples. But I would say players would not know nearly all abilities, spells or magic items a foe might be using at one time. And I sure don't think the GM should do a Buddy Move to have players find and encounter everything all the time. Like some sort of quantum encounter.

If the players can never find out about it, that doesn't matter in the least, because its indistinguishable from "just because".

I agree this is a big problem.

 

[aramis erak]

I've had many a group in which I was a player get annoyed with me for bringing up a rules issue that works against the PCs.

it’s a subcultural variable in gaming. I’ve run groups where a player got lambasted for not pointing out the negative rules in a timely manor, and others where even the mention of rules in player favor was a “SHUT THE «BLEEP» UP!!!” toxic reaction from the players.

I’ve found that highly tactical rules tend to have the most mention of non-beneficial to the individual reminders.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The bit that I've bolded is pretty striking to me. Is that a thing?

It seems so. I was referencing a post by @Celebrim in which they stated:

I require players to submit a backstory in D&D explaining who their character is and by extension how they expect to play that character. If the character is an elf but doesn't feel very "elfish" I will not approve the character for play.

In the context of classic D&D play - and some other prep-heavy beat the module play, like say some approaches to CoC - I think that sticking to your prep is probably a necessary condition of being fair, within the parameters of that sort of RPGing. Sometimes glosses on, or elaborations of and from, prep will be necessary ("What colour is the ceiling?" is a time-worn example), but departing from the prep is tantamount to breaking the game.

Whether what has been prepped is, itself, fair, depends so heavily on context I think it's hard to generalise. Is a mystery that can only be solved by understanding post-Newtonian physics fair? That would depend on your players. Are rot grubs fair? That would depend on how the play of that game, up to that point, has approached the looting of dead bodies.

Oh I think that sort of dungeon delve type play of early D&D absolutely relies on prep, and that prep can be perfectly fair. I think we can all come up with examples of instances where such prep led to play that most would categorize as unfair to one extent or the other.

Sticking to what’s prepared, in that sense, isn’t what makes the game fair, I wouldn’t say, though I would say that not sticking to prep is more likely to be unfair.

But I think that idea of sticking to what’s prepared being fair has lingered in D&D and similar play while the game has changed in other ways, and so it no longer seems as relevant as it may have been In those days.

 

[aramis erak]

Literally none of these are fudging.

The essence of fudging is that the players can't see what you've done. A 20 gets turned to a 19 behind the screen, or the monster's hit points suddenly change on the notepad or in the GM's head.

All of your examples are bad GMing, sure, but they are visible. They can be challenged.

Most GM fudging is that level of obvious, with a lot of players not calling them on it. It often is subtle only in the fudging GM’s delusional thinking.