How comprehensive do you want your RPG game system rules?

[Ranger REG]

How “complete” do you prefer your role playing game systems? Do you like coming up with rules on your own, or do you want the game system to already have it all figured out for you?

It's kind of a rhetorical question, isn't it?

Of course, we want a comprehensive ruleset that covers even the most rare or unique situations (i.e., freak accidents). We just want them to cover it in less words (and less volumes) as possible.

 

[Odhanan]

What I want is an adaptable core mechanic I can use to build then whatever rules I need for my game. To this end, what I need is a simple core mechanic and then examples of applications, with the basics and some particular cases covered.

What I particularly dislike is the concept of multiple parallel core rules' mechanics with each a host of particular cases contradicting the core mechanic. D&D is sometimes annoying with particular cases upon particular cases of particular rules and could use some triming and simplication to go back to the core concept (the over complicated rules for grapple come to mind).

 

[Celebrim]

I can smith my own rules. I probably will smith my own rules. But when I do smith out my own rules, a process that generally involves a bit of sweat and blood, I always have the feeling that I'm doing the work that I paid the guy who wrote the book to do. I really don't want to find huge holes in the rules after I bought a book. And I won't buy a book of which I'm only going to use a half-dozen or so pages out of every hundred. Not a dozen. Not twenty. I'd much rather buy a book in which I'm only not using a half-dozen or so pages out of every hundred.

But beyond those annoyances, there are solid and concrete reasons to have as complete of a gaming system as possible.

The most important reason is the problem of 'out of sight, out of mind'. In my experience, anything that the rules don't cover disappears as an option. A game system that doesn't provide an option explicitly ends up in the minds of most of its players (and referees) forbiding the option. Getting beyond that straight jacket takes alot of work. You have to develop out the rules for everything you want which adds flavor and depth to the campaign and that takes time - time that could go to gaming. You can go with supplements, and sometimes those are really good, but 90% of the time supplemental rules written by amateurs and sem-pros are just lame. There aren't many people out there that can write solid and flavorful RPG rules, and to a certain extent that includes me (although at least I get the exact flavor I want).

This problem extends to the fact that a good rule not only tells a player what he can do, but it gives him insight into the game universe so that he's inspired to create a more interesting character or to at least act in a more interesting way. To use the most trivial example, a combat system that has options for tripping, grappling, pushing, throwing, disarming, sundering, feinting, taking cover, leaping, fighting defensively, gaining the high ground, clinching, circling, lunging, charging, pinning weapons, evading, tackling, and so forth, and makes these options available to the player influences how combat plays out. The player, by virtue of having the options, is inspired to make use of them and thus makes the combat a more interesting story to tell and experience. If the rules for these things aren't provided, they just won't happen and in many campaigns the referee will simply rule that they can't happen.

Any crunch can inspire a player to make a more powerful character. That sort of crunch doesn't impress me in the least. Ideas like that I don't have to pay anyone for.

The sad part of this is that the economics of RPG's encourage companies not to improve and extend thier core into untouched areas, but instead to simply provide more the player with more familiar options.

Now, ideally you have an elegant system in which a few core mechanics cover just about everything. But my personel feeling is that elegance is something that takes time and you won't hit on it on your first attempt. There are no end of systems out there that tried to do everything with a 'single' 'elegant' mechanic and made a mess. Part of this comes from the fact that the universe itself isn't elegant. The real universe is messy. I doubt there is a grand unified rule of gaming that produces good resolution to every situation. Granted, you can resolve everything with a single rule, saying flipping a coin or playing rock/papper/scissors but that's not quite the same thing. You get an answer, but the answer usually doesn't bear much scrutiny. I'd rather the game designers go for comprehensive and then revise themselves into an elegant system as they gain experience with the system. Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither was 3rd edition.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

10.

Which is not to say the rules should be heavy, per say. Offhand, the only two systems I can think of where, IMO, the rulebook tells you how to do every single possible action you could ever do (that is genre-appropriate) are HERO and Wushu, and those two are very nearly at opposite sides of the spectrum.

 

[Treebore]

I just like a system to give me the ability to give reasonable extrapolations on how to resolve any game action well enough that players won't bog down play because they want it to be one point easier.

deleted was darn close and so is deleted. For me, anyways. D20 3E actually does it too, if you... never mind, don't want to start another war.

 

[Agamon]

I like systems that, while not having specific rules for each and every option or instance, have rules that make it easy to interpret any option or instance that may come up in the game. So, don't tell me what to do, but how to do it, if that makes sense.

 

[Agamon]

I prefer systems that have an easily adaptable core system, which can be extrapolated to cover (more or less) everything.

IOW, the game doesn't need to give rules for every obscure action, but neither is it truly "coming up with rules on the fly," since even on-the-fly rules are easily enfolded in the core mechanic.

D20 could do that. I don't think it's there yet, though.

That's why you're the writer, Ari. Well put, that's what I meant to say.

 

[T. Foster]

As a GM I'm about a 3 (which is what I voted): I want freedom to make up stuff without feeling like I'm "breaking the rules" or paying for content I'm not using, but as a matter of simple convenience it's nice to have guidelines for how to handle the most common situations. As a player I'm closer to a 0 -- I don't want to see the rules, I really don't want to think about them, and would prefer if there were no rules at all and the GM was judging everything by pure fiat as he saw fit (provided his perception of "as he saw fit" matches my own -- but, then, that's the rub, isn't it?).

 

[Melan]

I prefer systems where the players have enough footing to roughly know what their characters can expect in a conflict situation, but wide enough to allow the DM a lot of leeway. Neither D&D 3e's over-integrated and over-defined ruleset, nor 1e's minutiae appeal to me in this respect - although a stripped down 1e or a lighter d20 system would work. Basic C&C with some modifications is my current system of choice, and adequate for my needs.

 

[balterkn]

My opinion would be "enough to cover all the basics, but not so integrated that we can't decide what the players and DM want to get out of the game and easily gloss over the rest"