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Aha! Now I think I'm getting you. Sorry, definately a point where I failed to communicate. I'm not advocating a system without attributes, or difficulty levels. This situation would be handled in a rules-light system by something like "Roll Body, you need 4 successes. Bob, you're in platemail...

Doh! I'm still confused. I thought this was what you were saying. Do you read this as what I was saying? :) What I was trying (badly) to get across is that everything in the game is imaginary. I know I said "GM whim", but I was quoting someone. Everything in the game has been created by someone...

Okay, this helps. I really think that you're conflating "rules light" with "GM decides". If the GM, for some bizarre reason, wants to have an unspottable assassin, they've chosen to do so. Are you saying that the players should go "Whoa, back up, couldn't I have spotted him?" I think that's...

I'm realllllly not expressing myself well, I think. My apologies. Part of this is my lack of ability to relate to the whole "Well, then it's just GM fiat" argument. We have as much "Player fiat" in the games I run, if anything. I give players pretty broad narration rights. I don't have prepared...

But why are there boulders there in the first place? Why are there kobolds in the dungeon that first level PCs go to? Complex rules justify GM's whim. Seriously. They don't replace it. When people spend lots of time preparing stat blocks for enemies, do you really believe that their first...

Honestly, at this point I wouldn't do anything. It'll be entertaining to note how rarely he rolls under an 11, but really I'd just let it slide. So he cheats, big deal. Compared to the other dysfunction the player and the group seem to have, cheating seems pretty minor. If you put up with the...

On the "20 minutes of game in 4 hours" quote: That was Ryan Dancey. (The quote that started the thread was his response to someone who responded to that, saying "Wouldn't simpler rules help?" BryonD: I would agree with you that if you are playing a game where it matters how much you can lift...

Something I don't get, which may just be my own perspective getting in the way, is why rules-light games are perceived as "Cops & Robbers".A badly designed rules light game can, but nobody's defending badly designed games. HeroQuest, Sorcerer, The Pool, Primetime Adventures, Dogs in the...

I have to keep repeating to myself that Mearls and Dancy are concerned with what keeps selling product. That keeps me from going "Man, they don't get it." Really, I'm the one that doesn't get it, not from their perspective. I've run two campaigns in the past two years, and am starting another...

Near as I can figure, he means that game designers are responsible for balance and realism, and all that stuff needs to be figured out ahead of time by experts. Which I think is bunk. Example: A character is trying to jump a ravine to grab a rope, in the rain. If you can't look in the book to...

Oh, I don't know... it doesn't seem like much of a choice to me. It doesn't sound like you get to do much playing, or GMing, with your current group. I'd tell them you're going to be taking a break for a while to play in a game that meets every week. Let them know you'd love to keep playing...

I backed up that thread a bit to see where the discussion had originated, and it's interesting. Here's Dancy's original comment, about "20 minutes of game in 4 hours": To which someone responded: And that's when Dancy made the point that started this thread. I found that very interesting...

I agree that trying to play D&D without the the rules for D&D wouldn't save much time. I don't think that tells us much, though. If both players and GM have been trained to look to the rules to adjudicate everything, it's almost a tautology to say that rules that don't adjudicate everything...

Something I think people are missing is that ashockney, the thread originator, is a fan of the game. He's trying to find a way to keep the crunch and tactical options around while making the game accessible to a broader audience. I can't see why that's worth attacking. :) I know there's another...

Watch Buffy. Seriously. The Watcher's Council in that show is a group of stuffy British men in tweed who are, bluntly, not very helpful. They have access to a huge amount of knowledge on the supernatural, but their practical, "on the ground" work is not very effective. (I mean, their modus...

I agree with you. I tune in to ENWorld for some great threads, but I have to dig carefully past a whole lot of rules discussions to get to things I can actually use (since I don't run my games with D20). I think one of the reasons that rules elements are discussed so heavily here is that...

mythusmage hit the mark exactly. The paradigm of the game, how it's designed and played, encompasses way more than just rules. There's a lot of games out there that use completely different systems, but because they address those five issues the same way as D&D, they're not that different in...

I've seen what Silverleaf is talking about in actual play. I had at least one player who was really uncomfortable with any rules changes I made to D20 -- causing the group to get into a half hour debate about the ramifications of removing attacks of opportunity, for example. That, and most of...

There are tons of games that are less math- and accounting- intensive. Honestly Hero, GURPS, and Exalted are the only games I can think of in the same complexity level as 3.x. I found it overwhelming as a player with 3.0 and no expansions -- I wouldn't even touch it now. There's nothing bad or...

well, ptolemy, thanks for letting us know how the original situation turned out. the player might very well have left anyway, so you may have just given him an easy out. it sounds like you're comfortable with your decision in any case, and that's what matters. at least your remaining players...