Different philosophies concerning Rules Heavy and Rule Light RPGs.

[Thomas Shey]

No. Because I was talking about both GMs and players for whom this is a preference. Normally this is exactly the kind of things people should be talking about with players in their games to see if they are on the same page

And of course, everyone is really good about that, as discussion on here and other places shows regularly.

 

[TiQuinn]

"Supposed to".

Yeah, definitely not a 100% defense of sports in this country.

 

[Faolyn]

Why do RPGs need to warn their users that some players may be jerks? I've engaged in plenty of other kinds of games where no one feels they have to make a point of mentioning that.

They probably shouldn't have to--but it might be good for them to tell players how not to be jerks. After all, newbies probably won't realize rules lawyering or spotlight stealing aren't Nice Things.

 

[soviet]

They probably shouldn't have to--but it might be good for them to tell players how not to be jerks. After all, newbies probably won't realize rules lawyering or spotlight stealing aren't Nice Things.

Depends on what is meant by rules lawyering. Sometimes it seems to just mean 'expects the rules as written to be in operation' rather than getting into detailed arguments over interpretation of sub-clauses, etc.

 

[Faolyn]

I don't know if I agree. What about sports? Plenty of people play sports on a regular or long-term basis, but I don't recall any rulebook warning us about the dangers of jerk players or referees.

The term "good sportsmanship" comes to mind.

But anyway, sports may be a team effort but it's a bit less actively social (at least on the field) and it's not a conversation the way that RPGs are. Players in a sports team need to learn to work together on the field, but they all have a single goal and, from what little I know about sports, generally a relatively few agreed-upon methods of obtaining that goal. But an RPG isn't something with a single goal and limited methods. It's a conversation that goes in a million tangents, and most of the time and few of those tangents are actively wrong.

 

[Faolyn]

Depends on what is meant by rules lawyering. Sometimes it seems to just mean 'expects the rules as written to be in operation' rather than getting into detailed arguments over interpretation of sub-clauses, etc.

I'll take the wikipedia definition: letter of the law without the spirit, in order to gain advantage. Especially since rules lawyers rarely bring up rules that would be detrimental to them.

 

[Bedrockgames]

And of course, everyone is really good about that, as discussion on here and other places shows regularly.

In my personal experience, which I get is just my own, most people are good at navigating this. But I also avoid playing with people I wouldn't hang out with, where there are personality clashes. I think a lot of dysfunction can start with people just being mismatched as a group. For example, I am not gaming to have arguments and fights with people, if folks aren't chill about it and can't let things go, I don't have interest in gaming with them. Or if expectations are misaligned. I once chose not to be in a group when I realized one of the players, to me at least, was overly rigid about certain things. He was perfectly fine as a person. I got along with him. And I had friends in the group. But I realized I was probably not going to have a fun time gaming with a personality like that at the table, so I decided not to join.

But in my experience, I really haven't had problems with any kind of the issues people talk about since high school. And in high school that was largely a product of being young and having a limited social circle (that is an age when I expect people not to be flexible and adjust to different play styles. Maybe every so often, you have a person in the group who complains about certain things and people like that guy enough, they let him stay. But generally I don't want to play with complainers who bring negative energy to the table.

Another thing that helps here is a tend to game in groups where there is usually more than one person willing to run a game, so you get to spend time on both sides of the screen. And I am pretty easy going. I go with whatever the person running it wants (to me it is a bit like, I want to let the GM run games that fit their personal style and it doesn't matter to me if that isn't my preferred approach when I am running a game). So if the GM wants something very rules heavy, that uses a grid, I am not going to bitch about it. If they want to run something more narrative, I won't bitch about that either. I'm interested in seeing what they are excited to run, not what I would do if I were in their shoes. So I like theater of the mind, I like immersive descriptions over listing things off as numbers, but I am not averse to playing that way. I understand the advantages of that style of play and am happy to engage with it (this is why I have made both rules light and rules heavy games myself, and rules medium)

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm not saying this is about you, specifically, but I've seen enough of an obsession about time with people supporting rules-light games that I think its a legitimate thing to bring up in this context.

Sure, and time can be very important here. But I do think it isn't just about the time, but the quality of that time. Meaning, there is a difference between spending thirty seconds doing math or looking up a rule, and thirty seconds effectively getting more immersive description from the GM by Q&A (the latter still helps me feel like I am there, whereas the former can be more disruptive to my imagination). That said, I run plenty of games where I have no problem spending minutes getting rules right. So I don't have an issue with that style. I just think one of the things I look for in rules light is the system fading into the background and not worrying about things like figuring out where you are going to move your guy on a grid, or interfacing with the flavor through numbers

 

[Bedrockgames]

But that's it. To get close to the information rules data supplies its often not going to be one question, but several.

What does a "hard climb" mean to a given GM? What does "the ground you're jumping from is slippery" mean? It may well mean very different things to a GM and player (assuming "hard" is not a term-of-art), and the only way the latter is going to be sure is to chase that down, and that may make the difference between trying the task and not.

All I can tell you here is I find Q&A in practice to be very fluid and non-disruptive. Part of that is I am sure, due to it being an extension of the GM describing things. The other part is, if you are playing this kind of game, you are less likely to be overly concerned about the fine details of what 'hard' means. Eventually everyone in the group gets on the same page pretty quickly just by being familiar with one another (If I am playing this way for a while with a particular GM, I eventually intuit pretty well what 'hard' means to him or her). But I am also not fretting over it. I don't need the precise number on a scale of 1-10 in terms of difficulty. But I honestly find, this has never been a problem. I think maybe once in years of doing this, have I felt like the GM's description mislead me in a choice. And most GMs I play with will be reasonable if they do something like give you a boneheaded description that results in catastrophe

 

[Bedrockgames]

And again, lots of people put up with elements in games they dislike because they otherwise don't get to get the rest of the experience. And the fact the one play "won't be the guy complaining" doesn't mean he's still not having a problem with it; the fact its a group operation is exactly why he's not (and it doesn't automatically mean the rest of the group is preferring it either; it just may mean they don't care enough to get into it);.

I think you have a responsibility to voice your problems or find another group in these situations. People aren't mind readers, they can't know what you are thinking. I do get sometimes people are reticent to speak, so the GM and other players should also be mindful of any cues that someone isn't engaged and is having issues (I sometimes check with people to see if that is the case). But also if it is just one guy, and everyone else is enjoying themselves, they shouldn't rework everything they are doing just for him. That doesn't make at all