Does "rules light" lead to more arguments?

[Celebrim]

You don't need to generate three random numbers to tell you what occurs on three different checks to illustrate why you didn't get what you wanted... a single die role will do.

Sure. If all we cared about was 'whether we were getting what we wanted', then a single die role will do. But I thought we cared about creating interesting drama and consequences? And for that matter, I thought we were cooperating on this story, so why are we phrasing the fortune mechanics in an adversarial/competitive tone of "getting what we wanted", as if the point of rules was simply to thwart the story from being satisfying?

And for some players and games... even that single die roll isn't necessary.

Sure. And I've gone whole sessions of D&D without a single die roll, so I guess I'm one of those players. But there have also been moments that wouldn't have been awesome if there weren't dice rolls involved.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Sure. If all we cared about was 'whether we were getting what we wanted', then a single die role will do. But I thought we cared about creating interesting drama and consequences? And for that matter, I thought we were cooperating on this story, so why are we phrasing the fortune mechanics in an adversarial/competitive tone of "getting what we wanted", as if the point of rules was simply to thwart the story from being satisfying?

Don't misunderstand me... dice rolls most certainly create interesting drama. Especially in systems where the quality of the rolls have marked indication of a person's success or failure in "getting what he wants". If you're playing a d100 system and roll that illusive 00-- that has a huge impact on the drama. But at the same time... you don't need to use the dice if the players at the table are all confident in themselves and their fellow players in the use of dramatic tension to narratively offer up huge success or huge failure for themselves or a fellow player at just the right moment without needing a die roll to them when to do it. But yeah, sometimes letting the dice make that determination for you is easier and also adds that slight bit of randomness to create situations truly unique.

But having more rules that necessitate more dice rolls does not ipso facto create more interesting drama. Sometimes too many can be too much. "Rules light" systems instead ask the players to create the baseline of expectation and success themselves... but then throw in just enough randomness to make things occasionally unexpected.

All methods can work, all can generate fabulous stories, it really comes down to what the players are comfortable with and how proficient their are at reacting to what the other players throw out there.

 

[Celebrim]

But having more rules that necessitate more dice rolls does not ipso facto create more interesting drama. Sometimes too many can be too much.

Maybe. My biggest problem with more dice rolls is that they can create a 'hurry up and wait problem', where the dramatic tension is lost in the process resolution. I don't necessarily agree that well designed process resolution short changes you on interesting drama, it's just as a practical matter it may take too long to resolve.

But in a sense, even a rules light game is process simulation. I mean, if we wanted to we could just use 1 fortune roll for the whole campaign, "Do you win? Yes/No." It's the process simulation that makes you care for the story. Otherwise you might as well just write a book.

An example of recent intense process resolution leading to high cinema occurred in my last session.

The players were staking out a possible bad guy. For reasons of their own, the bad guys were staking out the same place, and sent a higher level mook to figure out why the lower level mook hadn't checked in.

Long story short, the mook and one of the PC's ended up on a roof top chase across the city. But that's not the interesting part, because that really didn't even require a die roll- both the PC and the NPC were too skilled to be threatened by the obstacles they were facing at the moment. Down in the street, the champion decided to spur his mount to a gallop to get ahead of the chase. In response, I rolled a half-dozen urban random encounters to indicate the crowd in the street to see if there were any obstacles to this plan. The results that struck my eye were Funeral, and Teamsters (3). I narrated this as a traffic jam between a Funeral Procession and three manure haulers with ox drawn wagons (as well as various other pedestrians). The results there were of minor hilarity, but unbeknownst to me or anything I could have planned, they were about to cascade.

Back on the roof a little while latter, the NPC realized he was getting cut off and couldn't shake pursuit. What could this guy do to possibly shake the guy behind him? He was running out of options. Then, I looked down off the side of the building through the eyes of the NPC - and I saw something soft to land in. So through heavy process simulation, the NPC successfully jumps off the side of the building 40' into the manure cart below, taking (skilled as he is in such things) minor damage.

But then my player proposes something I hadn't expected. Not only is he going to attempt the same jump, but he's going to try to land on the guy. Again, heavy process simulation with a fairly high risk of failure ensues, but he succeeds (also taking minor damage BUT inflicting a random amount of damage on the target.

Except that the random amount inflicted neared maximum damage, instantly killing the target. None of this was planned or intentional, nor could I have planned it. But it had players jumping up and down and whooping like they'd just watch a game winning TD in overtime at a sporting event - which in a sense they had, because like the TD, none of this was planned or anticipatable.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

In my experience, no.

Detailed rules elicit expectations that every situation is covered by a detailed rule, and that the detailed rules are clear and specific. Since that's seldom the case, the detailed rules sets involve significantly more discussion over minutia.

Sometimes, intentionally broad and vague is your friend, but you have to be consistently broad and vague.

 

[amerigoV]

It depends on the GM.

A good GM is empowered by less rules and this tends to work out to have less headaches (ie, the players trust the rulings and feel the GM will handing off the wall requests fairly). IMO, 3.x tried to "fix" all the bad GMs out there by putting the rules into the players has as much as possible. This may have improved the lower bound (less craptastic games with clueless or inexperienced GMs) but it also handcuffed good GMs (wasting time making sure the rules were tight to avoid any conflict with players).


I find my time as a 3.x GM improved my being able to run less rule heavy systems, so rule heavy systems do have their place.

 

[howandwhy99]

I was wondering though, when people say a system is "rules light", does that mean there is a lot of interpretation left up to the DM? A lot of DM calls? Does a rules light system cause players to argue any more than normal due to disagreements on how a situation should work out rules wise?

Rules light isn't about breadth of interpretation or the number of DM calls. If anything, rules light games probably have fewer arguments about rules than other games as there simply aren't that many to argue about.

Checkers is rules light. Wargames are typically rules heavy. Magic the Gathering is very rules heavy as every card is its own rulebook. D&D has tended towards the exception-based design and become very heavy as late.

Rules light is simply fewer rules.
Rules heavy is a lot of rules. This could be a small game with lots of exceptions or pages of charts for rule interactions or simply lots of different rules.

Complexity is different. Checkers is actually pretty complex. You don't need a lot of rules for complexity.
Elegant rule sets are actually highly complex games with few rules. E=mc² if you will. The Go or Chess of the game world.
Imprecise rules are what require a lot of referee calls. Those are usually considered poor rule writing and a sign of bad game design. D&D has fortunately moved towards very precisely written rules.

 

[pemerton]

when people say a system is "rules light", does that mean there is a lot of interpretation left up to the DM? A lot of DM calls?

I think it depends on the system you're talking about.

I would say that games like Marvel Heroic RP, or HeroWars/Quest, are pretty "rules ilght" compared to D&D - the character sheet is basically a list of descriptors, and resolution is a uniform system of contested rolls pitting descriptors against one another.

The main interpretation required is helping with framing conflicts, and adjudicating consequences. These aren't so much "rules calls" - the rules are clear once the conflict is framed or the consequence adjudicated - as "fiction calls". The main GM skill in running these games, I think, is to get these things right, and (closely related) to frame situations that will engage the players. Because the mechanics aren't an end in themselves (they're a long way from wargames), so if the fiction isn't engaging then you haven't really got a game!

 

[Starfox]

For rules light games, it is important that everyone is on the same page about setting and genre. How much special effects is it ok to use, how common and blatant is magic, things like that.

For example, the simple "shoot enemy" stunt can be narrated as "I take cover behind the barstool, push aside the broken glasses and bottles, and take a bead at him with my .38 special" or "Doing a backflip in the air, I wink at the waitress while shouting arcane words of power. The air is full of the whistle of otherworldly energies as a host of ethereal swords appear and pierce my enemy". These descriptions basically do the same thing, but they color the narrative in vastly different terms. The first smacks of hardboiled detectives or pulp while the second is urban fantasy with magic. A player who makes the first narration might be very cross with another player making the second narration, feeling he abused the rules-light by incorporating fantasy elements - even if there is no advantage involved.

 

[delericho]

No. Argumentative players lead to more arguments.

 

[ccooke]

I think it's more a function of the players and GM.
Some GMs are better with rules-light systems, some are better with rules-heavy.
Some parties respond better to detailed rulesets, while some feel constricted by them.

Let's just be glad there's a lot of choice on the market so most groups can pick something that fits for them

(I'm really curious how people would define the "heavyness" of OD&D, 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e and 5e to be honest - it strikes me that they're all weighted (if you'll pardon the pun) in different directions, so it's not as simple a question as it might appear)