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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ainamacar" data-source="post: 5115937" data-attributes="member: 70709">I want each game world to have its own rules and then stick with them, whatever they may be.  A self-consistent system isn't necessarily right, but a self-inconsistent system is certainly wrong (even if that just means incomplete).  That has some genre dependence for me, but self consistency is more important.  As a player I am not necessarily privy to the rules, and am willing to go quite far afield unless the DM is clearly (or even admittedly) being lazy in this area.  As DM, I'm pretty darn fastidious.I really like the meta-game, and am pretty tolerant of it as a player or DM.  Generally speaking I haven't played with many people who feel the need to be in character all the time, and I feel a little unnatural when I do.  Thus, except for big scenes, my regular group is rather free with meta-talk, and there have only been a few times when that has been a problem for someone at the table.  The game I'm in right now is also the test bed for a system a friend is designing, so we occasionally take lengthy meta-game breaks to figure things out.  That said, if we're all in the in-character "zone", I'm loathe to break it.I feel that mechanics should be as consistent as possible with the coherency of the game world, since that usually defines how characters and NPCs interact with it.  That can be rules-heavy or rules-light, as long as it (and/or the DM) is sufficiently flexible for the game world to make sense.  If that is basically true, then a story which is in serious conflict with mechanics is actually a story that is in conflict with the coherency of the game world.  In other words, that is a story best told in a different game.  If the mechanics and the game world themselves don't match, one or the other should bend a little.  If this must be done constantly they were never a good match in the first place and, yes, I mind that.I liken it to video games where characters perform incredible acts in cut scenes, ostensibly to serve the story, but can't do anything remotely comparable during gameplay.  It's a pet peeve for me.In general I like a small set of broad rules that apply universally (a framework) and a wide range of effectively independent sub-systems that only interact with each other through the broad rules.  In my view that lends itself to coherency as well as an interesting metagame.  I think this organization is compatible with both rules-light and rules-heavy games, unless the game has so few rules no subsystems could really be said to exist.My preference for the number of subsystems and how complicated they should be is tough to express...  It's not very helpful to say I like parsimony as well as enough complexity not to get bored (i.e. "just right") because pretty much anyone could say that.  I really enjoy D&D 3.5 from about levels 3-12, so that is something of a benchmark.  I like the basic framework of 3.5 very much, and I don't feel that it collapses under its own weight (as a player) until level 16 or so.  As a DM, whole 'nother story...</blockquote>

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