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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 8932570" data-attributes="member: 7035894">I don't know that I have fully formed thoughts about this subject. So these are more like musings.D&D was successful because it invented the key innovation of fusing rules-based creative problem solving with shared storytelling, including the theatrical concept of roleplaying. Imagination is at the heart of the game, but it is working in two kind of distinct ways here: the imagination that goes into sustaining the shared fiction, and the imagination that goes into creating novel ways to use very complex rules to resolve a tactical problem. The former has a lot in common with improv, the latter with playing chess.At its best, the game offers a strong synergy between the two. At its worst, it can descend into either a story that lacks form and direction, or into argument and rules-lawyering that becomes divorced from the story entirely. So the question is really how to strike an optimal balance between these two aspects of gameplay.When it comes to mundane tasks, I prefer rules that lean hard into the fiction of the story. Which typically means rules that have a light touch. But when it comes to character advancement, magic and combat, I do think the rules need to be a little more overt.In the rope trick example above, the players are leaning hard into the rules, but in service of the shared story. They are being creative problem solvers, which is a vital part of D&D - you run into problems and need to figure out how to resolve them using the tools at hand (the rules). I think this is a feature, not a flaw - we like having our brains tickled in this way. But the players are also working with the DM to ensure that the shared fiction is maintained.I don't think that you can have a complex magic system (i.e. one with a great variety of spells) without a fairly robust rules system, and I don't think that this is a flaw in the game. That doesn't mean that some of the specific rules about magic or about particular spells are ideal, but overall I think the game strikes a good balance between rules and story.</blockquote>

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