Different philosophies concerning Rules Heavy and Rule Light RPGs.

[Bedrockgames]

Again, "want" is, I think, doing too much lifting there. There can be a lot of "we'd rather play this game even if we find this particular part fairly annoying" that goes on, so if one person is willing to make an issue of it, and most of the rest of the group either doesn't care or feels the same but doesn't want to risk the GM throwing in the towel, the GM is still going to be the one that wins that one, even if he's, in practice, the minority there.

Looking at it as a contest where one sides wins, is I think part of the problem. The way I see it, if someone is running a game, they are putting in a lot of work, and if I like their style or simply get along well enough with them that I trust them to run something outside my wheel house, as a player I will adapt to what they are trying to do. And if it is something that I don't want, I simply wouldn't play. And I think if you genuinely aren't enjoying a GM's style, you really aren't doing them any favors by acting as though there isn't a problem when there is one. Sometimes styles and approaches are misaligned. Doesn't mean the player is doing anything wrong, doesn't mean the GM is doing anything wrong

 

[aramis erak]

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 orientations in re abuse are not normally in the rulebook, but are separately presented by the various leagues.
USA Hockey has an official reporting system for reporting physical/sexual/mental abuse by officials, and a different reporting system for officials making bad calls.
I've heard that a similar set of systems exist for both US NFL and college football (both gridiron football) from interviews I've seen.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ok, what are you saying then? What's your solution to the, "my players might think I'm an awful GM but won't tell me" problem?

Ask them. Don't just assume its okay because no one has said anything. And if you don't think you're getting an answer, accept that they may not like what you're doing but still would rather play than not, don't go around making claims about them being happy with how you run things that you don't actually know is there.

There can be a fundamental problem between groups and GMs where players want things their GM can't give them, but they'd rather play than not. Its easy to say "Go find a better match" but there are any number of reasons people won't do that. The GM isn't automatically a bad guy there, but he shouldn't kid himself he's doing something he's not; that turns it from an imperfect situation to one where he's being dishonest to make himself feel better, and there's no excuse for that.

And you never know, if you go to the trouble of digging into it, maybe there's some compromise that can be made that will make the game better for one or more players without making the game unpleasant for the GM and other players. But as long as the GM is the one with the most power, its going to have to come from his end because its entirely probable one or more players won't initiate a conversation that as far as they know might leave them without a game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

A rules light system doesn't have to sacrifice mechanical support for actions, and it doesn't have to be inconsistent. These are failures of design of specific systems.

I'd argue your first clause is only true when your definition of "mechanical support" is schematic. At some point when you make rules lighter, you're either disregarding some kinds of output, or you're offloading it on the GM. I don't frankly believe its possible to avoid both.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ask them for criticisms, things they'd like to see change, or just thinks they'd like to see (if the other two are too daunting) instead of asking if they had fun or if they liked it.

Yup. And pointedly, if you're not willing to, don't be surprised if there are places your game isn't serving them well.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I find rules heavy often work great generally but it is the specific corner cases where they can break down more. Having a rule for everything can certainly be handy but it means you have to use that particular rule (and the bigger the system, I think the less complete the playtests of each of the more obscure rules: not saying play testing isn't done, just that the core basic mechanics will always get way more live play testing and play testing at tables once it comes out than the less used rules

It depends on how the rules-heavy system is constructed. Its easy to draw conclusions about them from exception-based design, where what you say is true, because if a rule doesn't exist, you have to create it from whole cloth.

But its not hard to have a rules heavy system that starts with one or more core mechanical structures, and then adds on to produce more detail or nuance in specific areas. Then if you land outside those areas, you've still got that core mechanical structure to work with.

Example in point here is the original RuneQuest. It had, essentially, three ways of resolving actions: skill rolls, resistance rolls, and attribute rolls. That was probably at least one too many (they could have used resistance rolls against a default opposition value instead of attribute rolls for example), but it meant if you landed outside one of the spelled out cases, in most situations you could drop back to one of those rolls. It wasn't a complete panacea because you could have, say, environmental effects you were going to have to pull out of thin air, but you at least likely had other spelled-out effects to model from, as long as they're built to a common metric.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't read acceptance as agreement, and I don't think there is a point in being a jerk about any of this when there is disagreement. But there is only so much one can do to decipher what a person silently not enjoying a campaign is thinking. All for having conversations, all for looking for cues. But I also don't want to feel like this is a daycare or something where the GM is constantly supposed to be checking in to make sure everyone is 100% happy with everything all the time. Maybe it is just my personality, but if I am at a table and not enjoying myself, I will even get up in the middle of a session and excuse myself politely

But that's the point: that is about your personality. There's any number of people who won't do that because it feels disruptive. And that's even more true if they're enjoying part of the game and not other parts.

To some extent I do think its part of a GM's job to monitor this; that's the tradeoff that goes with being the one who gets to decide how the game is run in the first place. There's some limits as to how far that goes (the Tigger Syndrome is something that's hard to work around) but that doesn't provide an excuse not to try.

I will also say I tend to seek out gamers that are all pretty relaxed about things. We'll kind of play anything and by any style, and just adjust to the GM and their preferred system. And if we are really not interested, we'll sit out a game or campaign. If people are going to bring drama to the table over this kind of stuff, they are gamers I would rather not game with

Which is exactly why a lot of people won't tell GMs they have a problem until it leaks out. To be blunt "Shut up or leave if you have problems" is not exactly the sort of thing that gives some styles of GMing a great rep, and it teaches a lot of bad habits other GMs have to deal with.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ask them. Don't just assume its okay because no one has said anything. And if you don't think you're getting an answer, accept that they may not like what you're doing but still would rather play than not, don't go around making claims about them being happy with how you run things that you don't actually know is there.

There can be a fundamental problem between groups and GMs where players want things their GM can't give them, but they'd rather play than not. Its easy to say "Go find a better match" but there are any number of reasons people won't do that. The GM isn't automatically a bad guy there, but he shouldn't kid himself he's doing something he's not; that turns it from an imperfect situation to one where he's being dishonest to make himself feel better, and there's no excuse for that.

And you never know, if you go to the trouble of digging into it, maybe there's some compromise that can be made that will make the game better for one or more players without making the game unpleasant for the GM and other players. But as long as the GM is the one with the most power, its going to have to come from his end because its entirely probable one or more players won't initiate a conversation that as far as they know might leave them without a game.

So, I should assume they're not happy with my game? Why should I make that assumption? What's the impetus for the glass half-empty belief in my GMing skills you seem to be advocating? Should I be regularly requesting validation from my players, and assume I'm doing a poor job if I don't get it?

This whole conversation confuses me. It appears to start with, "jerk unless proven not-a-jerk".

 

[Thomas Shey]

Looking at it as a contest where one sides wins, is I think part of the problem.

If the player (or players) want it one way, the GM wants it another, who gets to decide? I'm perfectly willing to call that the person who "wins" here.

The way I see it, if someone is running a game, they are putting in a lot of work, and if I like their style or simply get along well enough with them that I trust them to run something outside my wheel house, as a player I will adapt to what they are trying to do. And if it is something that I don't want, I simply wouldn't play. And I think if you genuinely aren't enjoying a GM's style, you really aren't doing them any favors by acting as though there isn't a problem when there is one. Sometimes styles and approaches are misaligned. Doesn't mean the player is doing anything wrong, doesn't mean the GM is doing anything wrong

But again, this is an all-or-nothing view. Its entirely possible that parts of the game make them happy and parts very much not, and they have to decide whether they're willing to sacrifice the former for the latter.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So, I should assume they're not happy with my game?

If they alternative is assuming everyone is copacetic with all elements of it? Yes. If that's how you want to view that.

Why should I make that assumption? What's the impetus for the glass half-empty belief in my GMing skills you seem to be advocating? Should I be regularly requesting validation from my players, and assume I'm doing a poor job if I don't get it?

Uhm, more or less, yes?

Why would you assume there wouldn't be problems you're not seeing? Are you assuming you're such a perfect GM that there's no room for improvement? I don't make that assumption, and I've been GMing for almost a half century.

This whole conversation confuses me. It appears to start with, "jerk unless proven not-a-jerk".

No, it starts with "entirely possibly flawed and blind to it". Which is a description of most people in most human endeavors, so I don't see why I should feel differently here.