Different philosophies concerning Rules Heavy and Rule Light RPGs.

[chuckdee]

I think the impact of fake rolls quickly goes away and they become hollow. Players come to understand that they don't necessarily mean anything. This idea of the GM as a showman magician whose job is to misdirect and amaze needs to get in the sea. It's much more suspenseful to say what a roll is for and what the target numbers are and roll that out in the open. 'Right, on a 10 plus, the guard patrol heard you and will come to investigate.'.

That's where balancing fake rolls and real rolls come into play. Sure, if you're rolling all the time, the effect will be lessened. But if you roll somewhat sporadically, and intersperse your real rolls with fake rolls, they become more suspenseful. And if you go the other way, it can create a sort of analysis paralysis. A happy medium, as it is in most things.

 

[The Firebird]

I think the impact of fake rolls quickly goes away and they become hollow. Players come to understand that they don't necessarily mean anything. This idea of the GM as a showman magician whose job is to misdirect and amaze needs to get in the sea. It's much more suspenseful to say what a roll is for and what the target numbers are and roll that out in the open. 'Right, on a 10 plus, the guard patrol heard you and will come to investigate.'.

I think it relates to how much we see RPGs as a game vs as a way to construct a narrative. One of the most interesting things people do in tabletop, imo, is to hide monster hps from the players. The majority of crpgs do the opposite, giving a health bar, a number, or the like. And the point is that players need this sort of information about the world in order to make meaningful choices in the game space.

(In many cases, people hide hps in tabletop specifically so they, the gm, can decide the monster dies at a dramatically appropriate moment. This is the opposite of a game.)

Personally I like RPGs as games, so I'm happy to give all of this info as a gm, and to learn it all as a player.

 

[aramis erak]

I think it's unreasonable to assume the DM will be a jerk on purpose.

And yet, it's common enough to be a standard archetype...
It seems more common in two clades: convention games, and GM's taking out personals looking for players.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And yet, it's common enough to be a standard archetype...
It seems more common in two clades: convention games, and GM's taking out personals looking for players.

Just because it happens doesn't mean it should be assumed before the fact.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think the impact of fake rolls quickly goes away and they become hollow. Players come to understand that they don't necessarily mean anything.

This is only true with GMs who insist on practicing illusionism. For those that don't, I don't think it has that kind of impact at all.

 

[soviet]

This is only true with GMs who insist on practicing illusionism. For those that don't, I don't think it has that kind of impact at all.

How can you do fake rolls without also practicing illusionism?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Another aspect to rules light I think is a desire for the rules to fade as much into the background as possible

Yeah, this is the thing I want from rules light design.

No I don't think this is true at all. FATE, Dogs, Apocalypse World and others are all rules light games where the mechanics strongly underpin and drive play.

But indeed, this is correct. A lot of rules light games are rules light in a wrong way for my liking.

 

[Thomas Shey]

How can you do fake rolls without also practicing illusionism?

I'm not sure "I sometimes just make rolls for no purpose" is intrinsically illusionism; acting like you're making rolls to resolve something you aren't is, but those are not identical sets.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think it relates to how much we see RPGs as a game vs as a way to construct a narrative. One of the most interesting things people do in tabletop, imo, is to hide monster hps from the players. The majority of crpgs do the opposite, giving a health bar, a number, or the like. And the point is that players need this sort of information about the world in order to make meaningful choices in the game space.

(In many cases, people hide hps in tabletop specifically so they, the gm, can decide the monster dies at a dramatically appropriate moment. This is the opposite of a game.)

Personally I like RPGs as games, so I'm happy to give all of this info as a gm, and to learn it all as a player.

I think it is more about emphasizing the characters inhabiting a setting, and not having some objective sense of the deep physics underpinning that setting. I can see how some GMs might do that for dramatic purposes but a lot of GMs don’t give numeric information in order to create a stronger sense of realness and so players are reliant on description (but they aren’t fudging numbers behind the scenes).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think it is more about emphasizing the characters inhabiting a setting, and not having some objective sense of the deep physics underpinning that setting. I can see how some GMs might do that for dramatic purposes but a lot of GMs don’t give numeric information in order to create a stronger sense of realness and so players are reliant on description (but they aren’t fudging numbers behind the scenes).

While I'm sure that's the intent, my observation is that communication channels are not nearly as good at conveying things as those GMs seem assured they are.