D&D 5E D&D on Forbes
Argyle King
Legend
I think it's important to point out that being "Rules Light" isn't always indicative of complexity.
For example, most people I know consider D&D to be "lighter" ruleswise than GURPS. That being said, some of those same people had a much easier time learning GURPS than D&D 3rd Edition due to how the rules were put together. Weight of rules is something a lot of people seem to fixate on, but -personally- I think it's more important to see how the rules work. A game with few rules can still be complicated and clunky if the way the rules are supposed to work isn't clear and/or produces results which are counter-intuitive.
I'm someone who likes the idea of approaching story first. That being said, mechanics do still matter. The relationship between crunch and fluff is something important to me. If there is too much disparity between what the rules say is going on and what the story says is going on in-game, that bothers me. This was a problem I often had with 4th Edition. I loved the fluff, but I personally felt that the mechanics of the game did a very poor job of supporting the fluff. In contrast, when I ran a campaign which had a somewhat gonzo sci-fi bend to it, the rules seemed to fit perfectly. Mike Mearls himeself; in the same article linked to inside the OP passingly mentions this:
"The big disparity between having the feedback and not having it is that without that feedback, it would have been a much more mechanical approach, a skill challenge kind of thing where you need X number of success before failing. And that’s kind of divorced from the narrative reality what’s happening in the world."
He was giving an answer which was somewhat directed in a different direction, but what he says there is important. He repeats again and again that the rules should fade into the background. That is something I agree with completely, but I do not believe the weight of the rules is necessarily indicative of how easy it is to forget the rules are there. As I've said already, I believe fluff and crunch need to go hand-in-hand. Even in rules light game, there can be jarring mechanics which take my mind out of the story if the rules are too far divorced from the narrative reality of the game world.
For example, most people I know consider D&D to be "lighter" ruleswise than GURPS. That being said, some of those same people had a much easier time learning GURPS than D&D 3rd Edition due to how the rules were put together. Weight of rules is something a lot of people seem to fixate on, but -personally- I think it's more important to see how the rules work. A game with few rules can still be complicated and clunky if the way the rules are supposed to work isn't clear and/or produces results which are counter-intuitive.
I'm someone who likes the idea of approaching story first. That being said, mechanics do still matter. The relationship between crunch and fluff is something important to me. If there is too much disparity between what the rules say is going on and what the story says is going on in-game, that bothers me. This was a problem I often had with 4th Edition. I loved the fluff, but I personally felt that the mechanics of the game did a very poor job of supporting the fluff. In contrast, when I ran a campaign which had a somewhat gonzo sci-fi bend to it, the rules seemed to fit perfectly. Mike Mearls himeself; in the same article linked to inside the OP passingly mentions this:
"The big disparity between having the feedback and not having it is that without that feedback, it would have been a much more mechanical approach, a skill challenge kind of thing where you need X number of success before failing. And that’s kind of divorced from the narrative reality what’s happening in the world."
He was giving an answer which was somewhat directed in a different direction, but what he says there is important. He repeats again and again that the rules should fade into the background. That is something I agree with completely, but I do not believe the weight of the rules is necessarily indicative of how easy it is to forget the rules are there. As I've said already, I believe fluff and crunch need to go hand-in-hand. Even in rules light game, there can be jarring mechanics which take my mind out of the story if the rules are too far divorced from the narrative reality of the game world.
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