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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6869503" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think I'm more referring to the opposite situation where the rules are vague and obscure and filled with mysterious unknowable DM interpretation. In that scenario there's no mastery. Tony seemed to be saying that there was some sort of path between extremes between system mastery of a complex (and perhaps obtuse system) and the 'playing the DM' that will happen in the vague and DM interpretation driven system. My response to that is "no, a precise and clear system simply clears the board of these considerations." That is to say it allows the DM to work by managing plot and action, deploying the precisely defined and clear rules and then creating scenarios with them that achieve the narrative ends desired (I don't mean railroading by that either, I mean whatever those ends ARE, hopefully something gratifying to the table). Now, that means IMHO you have potentially a few choices. You could have a very simple and clear system. This could be achieved for instance by a small subset of 4e, maybe something like Essentials with a few rough edges filed off it. There are systems a lot like this around that handle things pretty concisely without a lot of ambiguousness in mechanics. 4e represents an extension of that into an elaborate system where system mastery is definitely a factor, though not overwhelmingly so. Then you have systems like 3.x that are ALL system mastery, things are pretty well laid-out but the game is just incredibly obtuse and there's no attempt to make it easy to figure out what to do as a player to come to grips with it. Beyond that you have systems like older classic D&D that are not super complex, but simply rely heavily on DM fiat and interpretation such that there simply aren't rules for things that happen all the time. At best a DM is highly consistent and sticks to what the game covers fairly well, but that's where you get your heavy DM influencing (or else DMs that come across as being 'hard-assed', its hard to actually DM these games really well). There are some other types, like DW that are pretty well nailed-down in terms of rules, but the process of play is so open-ended that its really a mutual narrative more than game play in focus.</blockquote>

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