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Message: <blockquote data-quote="[OMENRPG]Ben" data-source="post: 5969702" data-attributes="member: 6677983">What are your thoughts regarding book organization for player actions? To clarify, in a single-book system (no separation between PHB or DMG) would you prefer a list of defined actions with their rules and terms spelled out in the Player section of the book or in the Game Master section?The argument is that if the rules are all in the GM side, the Player doesn't need to know any of the fiddly bits and can simply describe what they want to do. The GM has the rules reference in his portion of the book or on a quick reference table, and can make adjudications as necessary. The counterargument is that a player should know what options he has available in terms of mechanical interaction with the game world, but as we've seen in certain game systems, that can prevent out of the box thinking. Tactical players who really enjoy the crunch element would probably like to know exactly what actions have what mechanical impact, but then one could say there's nothing stopping them from opening up the book and taking a look in the GM section.This question arose during my development of the OMEN RPG book, and we are trying to streamline the player process as much as possible. We have a quick start guide that fits on a single page, which explains the gist of the system and how to do different things as a player, but currently we're keeping more of the crunchy bits strictly in the GM section of the book.A number of my playtesters, who are now grizzled veterans in terms of OMEN (as they've been testing for over three years now), are very familiar with the mechanical aspects of all of the actions in the game. The majority of them have GMed their own OMEN playtest groups, and so have seen it from the back end as well.What I've noticed is that the more experienced players are actually less creative than the brand new players. And this somewhat supports my theory that the more the player knows and understands the guts of the system, the more they will try to work within said mechanical constraints. What are your thoughts? Any and all feedback is highly appreciated.</blockquote>

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