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<blockquote data-quote="Edgar Ironpelt" data-source="post: 9595380" data-attributes="member: 32075">Crunchy rules have both advantages and drawbacks. Light rules requiring lots of freeform GM interpretation (or even player decision) have both advantages and drawbacks. Different GMs, players, and groups will prefer different combinations of crunch and freeform as their personal optimum. My own preference runs toward crunchy rules, with an analogy I first used back in the 20th century: I want a good solid mechanic to resolve a situation in a game for much the same reason I want to use a ruler to draw a straight line. Or to invoke another analogy from the same USENET group: The quickest, easiest, and most accurate way to resolve the result of a character rolling a pair of six-sided dice is for the player to roll a pair of six-sided dice. Now the obvious objection is that sometimes one wants freehand curves rather than straight lines, or wants inaccurate 'unrealistic' results from a given crapshoot roll by a PC. That's where the different personal optimums between crunch and freeform come in, as crunchy rules for curve-drawing or a weird 'luck' ability become harder to deal with and at some point the gamer switches to some sort of freeform ruling as the preferable option. And despite my own preference for crunch in the rules, there are places where I put down my finger and say, &quot;On this particular spot, the proper decision-mechanic is 'GM whim'&quot; - or even &quot;... player decides.&quot; For example, I've decided that I can't be satisfied with any sort of bleeding-out rule, so my house rule there is &quot;If the character is wounded to the point of invoking RAW 'bleeding out,' the house rule is that the controlling player (the GM in the case of NPCs) decide how long it takes for the character to die - or even if they die instead of going on to ultimate recover and&nbsp; survive.&quot; But for me, those sorts of exceptions are exceptions. YMMV.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Edgar Ironpelt, post: 9595380, member: 32075"] Crunchy rules have both advantages and drawbacks. Light rules requiring lots of freeform GM interpretation (or even player decision) have both advantages and drawbacks. Different GMs, players, and groups will prefer different combinations of crunch and freeform as their personal optimum. My own preference runs toward crunchy rules, with an analogy I first used back in the 20th century: I want a good solid mechanic to resolve a situation in a game for much the same reason I want to use a ruler to draw a straight line. Or to invoke another analogy from the same USENET group: The quickest, easiest, and most accurate way to resolve the result of a character rolling a pair of six-sided dice is for the player to roll a pair of six-sided dice. Now the obvious objection is that sometimes one [I]wants[/I] freehand curves rather than straight lines, or [I]wants[/I] inaccurate 'unrealistic' results from a given crapshoot roll by a PC. That's where the different personal optimums between crunch and freeform come in, as crunchy rules for curve-drawing or a weird 'luck' ability become harder to deal with and at some point the gamer switches to some sort of freeform ruling as the preferable option. And despite my own preference for crunch in the rules, there are places where I put down my finger and say, "On this particular spot, the proper decision-mechanic is 'GM whim'" - or even "... player decides." For example, I've decided that I can't be satisfied with any sort of bleeding-out rule, so my house rule there is "If the character is wounded to the point of invoking RAW 'bleeding out,' the house rule is that the controlling player (the GM in the case of NPCs) decide how long it takes for the character to die - or even [I]if[/I] they die instead of going on to ultimate recover and survive." But for me, those sorts of exceptions [I]are[/I] exceptions. YMMV. [/QUOTE]

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