Let's Talk About "Intended Playstyle"

[Nth Dimension Games]

I think assuming every system only devolves into pass/fail with no meaningful nuance in the output beyond that, nor any relavant ability to put your thumb on the scale (if you're doing either of those--both seem possible) is a premise I don't accept.

I use "devolve" in the sense you cannot simplify it any more. You can always add more nuance. "You pass, but..." and "you fail, but..." Is the system I use for the extra nuance to tell a compelling story.

The light and simple systems will be as close to just the pass/fail state as possible. There's no room to lawyer your way out of a fail into a pass because you convinced the DM to add a few point to your score because of good roleplay.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I use "devolve" in the sense you cannot simplify it any more. You can always add more nuance. "You pass, but..." and "you fail, but..." Is the system I use for the extra nuance to tell a compelling story.

Okay, you meant it somewhat the opposite of what it seemed.

The light and simple systems will be as close to just the pass/fail state as possible. There's no room to lawyer your way out of a fail into a pass because you convinced the DM to add a few point to your score because of good roleplay.

But you've just explained how you can. Such systems tend to drop to at least some extent (some more than others) into accepting "rulings not rules" because their rules are too lightweight to handle any nuance internally, so GM judgments tend to weigh in more heavily, and as such "playing the GM" is always a larger risk. How much larger depends on the dynamics of the people involved, but there's certainly plenty of room for it to potentially happen.

 

[pemerton]

The light and simple systems will be as close to just the pass/fail state as possible. There's no room to lawyer your way out of a fail into a pass because you convinced the DM to add a few point to your score because of good roleplay.

But you've just explained how you can. Such systems tend to drop to at least some extent (some more than others) into accepting "rulings not rules" because their rules are too lightweight to handle any nuance internally, so GM judgments tend to weigh in more heavily, and as such "playing the GM" is always a larger risk. How much larger depends on the dynamics of the people involved, but there's certainly plenty of room for it to potentially happen.

What are these "light and simple systems" that encourage "playing the GM"? Or that are as close to just pass/fail as possible?

The light and simple system I have the most experience with is Prince Valiant. Neither of those propositions is true of it.

Whether a system admits of results other than pass/fail, and/or whether it encourages "playing the GM", seems to me to be pretty independent of how "light" or "crunchy" it is.

 

[Thomas Shey]

What are these "light and simple systems" that encourage "playing the GM"? Or that are as close to just pass/fail as possible?

You may be misreading my statement. I don't think any of those systems proactively encourage "playing the GM". As I stated in my post, there are lighter systems that focus very much on "rulings not rules", and I'm firmly of the opininion that approach passively encourages playing the GM.

The light and simple system I have the most experience with is Prince Valiant. Neither of those propositions is true of it.

Whether a system admits of results other than pass/fail, and/or whether it encourages "playing the GM", seems to me to be pretty independent of how "light" or "crunchy" it is.

As you can see, I disagree. The more a system puts most nuance in the hands of the GM, the more it does that and I don't think its hard to see why.

There are lighter systems that simply don't assume any mechanical nuance--they're just ways of generating narrative results, and as such mechanical nuance is moot--but I'll state I see no way of having mechanical nuance with a lighter system without it being in the hands of the GM. My view is you can have mechanical nuance, light rules, or output somewhat independent of the GM--pick two.