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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 7635649" data-attributes="member: 18">The big problem with the "more rules means less interaction" claim is that it is both anecdotal, and doesn't actually mean that more rules is the problem.Going from 2E to 3E combat we saw the same thing. In 2E, with few rules and DM adjudication for anything fancy, players constantly tried fancy stuff. In 3E, with rules to cover vastly more scenarios, we saw a massive decrease, because as the rules were written, fancy stuff was generally outright a bad idea without serious investment in Feats and skills. Especially as suddenly one check might become several, each of which could fail and ruin the whole. But does that mean having more rules for combat always does that? Your anecdotal claim re social rules follows that logic. And don't get me wrong, in a very broad sense, I agree. My experience with very complex social systems (and very complex combat systems!) is similar. But saying it is inherent and implying it cannot be avoided isn't right, if that's what you mean to imply. As with combat, some rules designs encourage players to be clever and interact, others push them to picking moves with little thought to RP or context.So I think rather than throwing one's hands up and claiming adjudication is always better, one might want to be more circumspect. Yes, replicating a combat style system may not work well. Especially not if, like 3E combat, it makes specialisation and heavy investment in single tricks the right way to go (hello Trip).But you can have both more social rules and more and better RP, or at least equal RP, as some other games show. Stuff like 2e WoD and various editions of SR have much more in-depth social stuff than 5E but it wouldn't be reasonable to claim either had less or worse RP than 5E.Whereas I have played some WW game (I forget which), which did indeed do a "3E combat" on social stuff and RP, making it overly complex and rewarding specialisation to the point where it detracted.The right rules help, the wrong rules hinder. Less rules is not always better. 2E did not have better RP than 4E or 5E, for an easy example.</blockquote>

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