NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imperialus" data-source="post: 4281626" data-attributes="member: 893">Note to mods.  I'm dancing pretty close to the no politics rule here, it was just the best 'real world' example I could think of.  Edit away if you think I've crossed the line.Perhaps rules lite isn't the best way to describe it, rules... streamlined?  perhaps would work better.  There is also a whole range of rules complexity running the gamut from Red Box D&D all the way up to Rolemaster.  It's like trying to pin someone on a political spectrum (intended for example not debate).  You have Michal Moore on one side and Anne Coulter on the other.  99% of people fall somewhere in between the two.I think 4E has moved towards the rules lite side of things, it certainly has when compared to 3.X.  Also while rules lite and rules heavy systems have always existed they tend to fall in and out of favor with the larger gaming community, just like how the political climate swings back and forth between conservative and liberal (again example, not debate).  It's a generalization, but I think it's fair to say that during the 90's there was a trend among the more popular systems to increase the complexity of the rules.  Gamers wanted to know how difficult it was to do X, Y or Z and have the rules to back them up.  After a certain point though this begins to become untenable.  Rules systems become too unwieldy and you end up with things like grapple checks and 300+ cleric spell lists.After 3.5 was released there was a very distinct reversal of the trend.  Games like Mutants and Masterminds, True 20, and Castles and Crusades were published and attracted a fairly significant following.  It's not D20 related but Shadowrun also made a similar transition between 3rd edition and 4th edition where they unified the system, and eliminated floating target numbers making it 'rules lite' in comparison to 3rd edition.  4th ed is the most popular SR edition to date, and this is in spite of that horrible video game.I think 4th edition is trying to capture the same sort of audience that was attracted to T20, C&C, and whatnot.  It's still much more rules heavy than either of them but, when compared to 3.5, it's much simpler.</blockquote>

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