Different philosophies concerning Rules Heavy and Rule Light RPGs.

[pemerton]

I'm not sure that there is any universe where I would call Daggerheart "rules light."

Yet someone coming from PF2e sees it that way! Maybe that tells us something about PF2e?

 

[Retros_x]

Yet someone coming from PF2e sees it that way! Maybe that tells us something about PF2e?

If you are on one end of the spectrum, every other option looks like the other end of the spectrum.

 

[pemerton]

If you are on one end of the spectrum, every other option looks like the other end of the spectrum.

Another interesting thing about the comparison of Daggerheart (as rules "light") to PF2e (as rules heavy) is that it can help someone whose main experience is PF-esque and D&D/d20-esque games to see what is possible with other designs. That might help them appreciate how even lighter RPGs are possible which don't have the sorts of issues that are sometimes attributed to them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What a difference a bit of time can make.

The me of late 2025 is on the other side of this split from the me of early 2025.

Over the course of 2025 I saw my Pathfinder game start to unravel, and right as that was happening Daggerheart hit.

For a long time I've only seen 'rules light systems' that just seem to want me to 'wing it' and make ruling but offered no good guidance on how to do that other than 'just do it'.

I'm sure the systems and articles were out there - but the one I'd read were not well articulated - until the GMing advice in Daggerheart more or less walked me through a process within a rule set that had tools in place for it.

Meanwhile I was getting ever more frustrated with watching my Pathfinder 2E players just 'move tokens around, roll dice, and debate power moves, tactics and builds' while I was trying to give them a story. I'd get a few biters but always one or more would just stick to the mechanics.

And then I played what is considered Pathfinder best story adventure - season of ghosts - and we get to some moments to discuss the situation with some key NPCs and try to persuade them this way or that. At my advice our GM broke out the influence system, but by the time we got to that point a few weeks later I was feeling like I'd advised him poorly, and sure enough - mechanics that not just seek to overrule your narrative, but also constrain what roleplay would be relevant and what is 'wasting people's time at the table'.

They have a mechanic for everything in Pathfinder. And that's great. Until it isn't.

I encountered Daggerheart's fluid experience system right after feeling frustration in Pathfinder that you get not just role locked by your class, but heavily constrained in what out of combat things you can do because it's all pre-written tied to specific stats.

I encountered narrative roleplay advice in Daggerheart and later Mist engine that could let mechanics work WITH the roleplay right as we suffered through the influence system of Pathfinder.

I read a section in Daggerheart telling me to only call for rolls when there was relevant narrative consequence right after a Pathfinder session where we wasted a half hour watching a player roll repeated pick lock skills on a single lock on a no-consequence regular door just sitting there.

I read read about Daggerheart and Mist trading the spotlight around after sessions in 3 different pathfinder games where bad rolls on initiative didn't cost the party a win, but made multiple PCs feel useless because they couldn't act when it made sense to the scene because it didn't meet the numbers.

So now I'm coming out of this a bit different.

I still don't like the rules-light games of the 90s and before that I was used to. They just used 'rule 0' as a crutch for bad writing.

But now I've seen Daggerheart, and then even better Mist engine - which is heavily based on PBtA. I still haven't seen PBtA itself.

But what I have seen is rules light systems with consistency and solid guidelines for how to work through something and exactly HOW to make rulings that fit narrative theme, don't break the light rules that are there, and don't feel like I will be constantly inconsistent for lack of remembering what I said last time.

So when it comes to modern Rules light games like Legend in the Mist and Daggerheart - I'm there now.

I'm glad you're enjoying Daggerheart and Legend in the Mist, but maybe PF2 just wasn't the right rules-heavy game for you? I mostly prefer heavier rulesets, and I really dislike PF2.

 

[BenjaminPey]

I wouldn't say Legend in the Mist is rules-light, it's rather dense in rules and mechanics, and Daggerheart even more so.

What LitM is, that D&D or PF are not, is fiction-first, ever working on a (mostly) unified roll without any subsystem (where numerous spells in DnD use subsystems), and conflict-oriented (even though it's now more fluid than in City of Mist and you can very well use Quick or Detailed actions for simple tasks).

Playing the game might be simpler, though, when you're used to it, especially for GMs. It can even be quite liberating.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If an event has only one rule in a complex system it will only have one event of ruling in most cases. I don't see why a rule should have one single simple resolution will a ruling has 4 events that needs to be resoluted? But maybe I am missunderstanding what you mean here?

It was late so I probably didn't express it well.

Let's say you're thinking about running across a set of broken turf, jumping over an obstacle, climbing up a short wall and disabling a automated weapon system.

(Assuming here that you're using a system that actually distinguishes failure on all four parts of those; I have complaints about systems that consider it one thing, but they're different complaints).

I don't need to know what the roll will be needed for one of those things, but at least in rough in all four. Similar things can come up in planning things like various steps in a plan involving heist situation, where the steps will be spread across longer time.

Now, I don't expect to know precisely each of them in that case because there will be likely situational things I won't know until I get there on at least one step, but I still want an approximation of each one, or I may not even attempt it (and that's true with the prior example too). Its not one part of the event I need to know to continue.

Yeah, so the DM will probably do worse rulings.

Bluntly, I'd rather have rare bad rulings than constant unpredictable ones.

And again rulings in light-rules system are also light-weighted. Yes, you do it constantly, but it is a main part of the game and thus simple and fast. In 90% of cases its just some sort of ability check. Meanwhile in complex rulesystems you need to first know a)is there already a rule for that and b) if not, how can I make a ruling that is balanced towards the complex rules.

And while rules-light will have constant rulings, rules-heavy systems have constant referencing rules. I know what I enjoy, do a quick ruling instead searching the rule in my 500 page rule tome. Or learn the complex rules as if I am back in college. Also trying out new systems is a much bigger hurdle for tables who learned and mastered complex systems.

I've played any number of complex rule games where we were only rarely needing to reference more material than was summarized on the character sheet. The key is there's a difference between complex system and systems with lots of common special casing. The Hero System is usually viewed as a complex system, but most of the time you played just off the sheet. While I might have had to sometimes look things up for uncommon situations when running Mythras, that was a small fraction of function time.

So I'm afraid I just don't accept your premise here, at least as a general point. It's true for games that have a lot of commonly used exception based design (D&D spell definitions for example) but its hardly true just because a game is complex.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yet someone coming from PF2e sees it that way! Maybe that tells us something about PF2e?

I'd argue, as I mostly did above, that's because PF2e being heavily evolved from 3e era and 4e era D&D, is very strongly exception based.

 

[Kichwas]

I'd argue, as I mostly did above, that's because PF2e being heavily evolved from 3e era and 4e era D&D, is very strongly exception based.

Yeah.

In consider Mist engine rules light because the "rules" fits on a 2 page spread that is half art. There's a several hundred page book but it's mostly guidance on how to do rulings. It's a multi-hudred advice column.

Like the ancient game 'Go' - the rules for that can fit on an index card, but people have been writing about it how to master it for centuries. It's extremely 'rules light' compared to Chess, but vastly more complex in what you can do with it.

Daggerheart might be a more tricky call. The "rules" are also very short, but the cards are each different abilities - that all work within the constraints of those rules. So I view that as rules light but it looks like others view it as complex.

 

[1QD]

It might help your opinion on the subject if you take a look at the minimalist systems that are out there. It will help to inform your opinion, and create a common ground where to discuss. As it is, it's just that- an opinion thrown out there that no one can help discuss and isn't really of any help because there's no context. There are all sorts of systems - both minimalist and not- that are home grown that are just not any good, and no amount of additional rules will help to make that way. One cannot tell without information if these rules are just not any good, it's a design choice that disagrees, or something else that makes it this way. Especially without specifics.

I can see your point, however my experience with this sort of games stems from early 90's references. They did not catch my interest then, and soo much time has passed I do not recall much other than I had a tendency to dislike them.

In the late 90's I swore off any other system so as not to be influenced by any other RPG. While there may be other great systems out there, taking influence from other RPG systems was not my go to. I wanted an original system of my own creation, and short, rules light systems, always at that point, had felt insufficient for the ideas I had at the time.

To be fair I would have no way of knowing at the time that there would be 20,000 plus other systems out thier by the time I was done. While surely there will be unintentional crossover of ideas, jumpining into rules light systems was largely a bad idea due to time constraints, and my desire to remain pure in my inspiration for rules.

That said I found Dnd left out much of what I was seeking, and overall found it too restricting.

 

[chuckdee]

I can see your point, however my experience with this sort of games stems from early 90's references. They did not catch my interest then, and soo much time has passed I do not recall much other than I had a tendency to dislike them.

With just this statement (leaving off the part about swearing off other systems), I don't even see how you can form an opinion after so long out of the loop? I mean, you of course have an opinion, but it s not informed by any measure that an average person could consider reasonable, IMO.