Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Thomas Shey" data-source="post: 9619637" data-attributes="member: 7026617">It depends on how the rules-heavy system is constructed.&nbsp; Its easy to draw conclusions about them from exception-based design, where what you say is true, because if a rule doesn't exist, you have to create it from whole cloth.But its not hard to have a rules heavy system that starts with one or more core mechanical structures, and then adds on to produce more detail or nuance in specific areas.&nbsp; Then if you land outside those areas, you've still got that core mechanical structure to work with.Example in point here is the original RuneQuest.&nbsp; It had, essentially, three ways of resolving actions: skill rolls, resistance rolls, and attribute rolls.&nbsp; That was probably at least one too many (they could have used resistance rolls against a default opposition value instead of attribute rolls for example), but it meant if you landed outside one of the spelled out cases, in most situations you could drop back to one of those rolls.&nbsp; It wasn't a complete panacea because you could have, say, environmental effects you were going to have to pull out of thin air, but you at least likely had other spelled-out effects to model from, as long as they're built to a common metric.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Thomas Shey, post: 9619637, member: 7026617"] It depends on how the rules-heavy system is constructed. Its easy to draw conclusions about them from exception-based design, where what you say is true, because if a rule doesn't exist, you have to create it from whole cloth. But its not hard to have a rules heavy system that starts with one or more core mechanical structures, and then adds on to produce more detail or nuance in specific areas. Then if you land outside those areas, you've still got that core mechanical structure to work with. Example in point here is the original RuneQuest. It had, essentially, three ways of resolving actions: skill rolls, resistance rolls, and attribute rolls. That was probably at least one too many (they could have used resistance rolls against a default opposition value instead of attribute rolls for example), but it meant if you landed outside one of the spelled out cases, in most situations you could drop back to one of those rolls. It wasn't a complete panacea because you could have, say, environmental effects you were going to have to pull out of thin air, but you at least likely had other spelled-out effects to model from, as long as they're built to a common metric. [/QUOTE]

Verification