Interesting Ryan Dancey comment on "lite" RPGs

[Smitty]

...

You're right about that...

 

[woodelf]

I'll refrain form the classic C&C/D&D 3.X and instead go for my favorite, the d6 SW vs d20 SW for an example.

I can create a non-jedi PC in d20 in 5 minutes. Any level. A jedi takes 10-15. I cannot create any character in d6 under 15 min, despite having alot less steps to go through.

Huh? You can't pick a template, allocate 7 points (well, dice) to skills (of which there are about 25, all printed on the character sheet already), and pick a name and description in under 15min? And yet you can make all the decisions for a D20 System character (such as generating and arranging stats, picking feats, calculating and allocating skill points) in 5 minutes?

Perhaps the greatest thing I dislike about rules-lite is being a PLAYER. I feel like I have less control over my own PCs action because ultimately, the guy at the end of the table will be the decider of my action's success and failure, not myself or even impartial dice. If the DM doesn't believe I can swing across the chasm with the princess, He will a.) SAY NO or b.) Make an extremely difficult TN/DC Check. With some formula of rules, I can determine MYSELF my chances of success/failure and decide if I wish to chance it. The DM, of course can asign additional modifiers ("The princess isn't as light as she appears") to keep up tension, but WILL KNOW if the stunt is out of my league.

That depends on the style of the game, as well as on how detailed its rules are. In plenty of rules-lite games, you *can* determine those things yourself--because the rules are specifically structured to put those decisions in the players hands, rather than the hands of the GM or the rules.

I'd rather have a consistant, if heavier, ruled game than trust that my GM will come up with a fair and consistant ruling for such ad hoc options. Want my proof? My players NEVER tried to grapple, bull-rush or trip in combat until 3e rolled along.

That's not proof, that's anecdote. My players have given up trying most of those things, since we switched to D20 System (from lighter games), and, before they apparently gave up, they and i were regularly finding ourselves needing to improvise rules for doing something that the rules [Arcana Unearthed + D20SRD, that is] don't cover. It's been a few weeks since a really big combat--i'll be sure and pay attention to see if they try fancy maneuvers or just hack. And, honestly, i suspect it's partly because i was inconsistent--an inconsistency brought on by the complexity of D20 System, and the fact that it covers some things in detail and others not at all.

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Oh, your comment about GMs having different styles reminds me of something i'm planning on trying out on the group next session. The Burning Wheel has "beliefs" which, in addition to defining the character, are explicitly a tool to define gameplay. That is, the GM can look at a character's beliefs, and know that that's what the player wants out of the game--why play a character questing for revenge, if you don't want to play about questing for revenge?

See, complex rules are a kludgy way to solve the problem of miscommunicated playstyles. If the problem is that the GM and players have different assumptions about how the game should go, isn't a better solution for the GM and players to talk about that and come to a shared understading of how the game should go? Surely that's better than relying on a complex ruleset that may define a playstyle that none of the players specifically wants. Yes, detailed rules will prevent arguments between the players, but unless they happen to define the playstyle you want, what's the point? Frex, let's say you *all* want a swashbuckling, free-flowing, bigger-than-life game, but have disagreements about exactly what that means--one person thinks "Errol Flynn", another thinks "Jet Li", and a third thinks "The Matrix". Obviously you're gonna have conflicts--especially if the Errol Flynn guy is applying those standards as GM, while the Jet Li and Matrix players are trying to do stunts that match what they think the genre should be. But using baseline D&D3E, while providing a common baseline, will provide a baseline that doesn't match *any* of the players' desires.

Instead, you could stick with the relatively light system, and just add one specific rule, defining the standards of reality and heroicism.

 

[The_Universe]

Huh? You can't pick a template, allocate 7 points (well, dice) to skills (of which there are about 25, all printed on the character sheet already), and pick a name and description in under 15min? And yet you can make all the decisions for a D20 System character (such as generating and arranging stats, picking feats, calculating and allocating skill points) in 5 minutes?



That depends on the style of the game, as well as on how detailed its rules are. In plenty of rules-lite games, you *can* determine those things yourself--because the rules are specifically structured to put those decisions in the players hands, rather than the hands of the GM or the rules.



That's not proof, that's anecdote. My players have given up trying most of those things, since we switched to D20 System (from lighter games), and, before they apparently gave up, they and i were regularly finding ourselves needing to improvise rules for doing something that the rules [Arcana Unearthed + D20SRD, that is] don't cover. It's been a few weeks since a really big combat--i'll be sure and pay attention to see if they try fancy maneuvers or just hack. And, honestly, i suspect it's partly because i was inconsistent--an inconsistency brought on by the complexity of D20 System, and the fact that it covers some things in detail and others not at all.

----
Oh, your comment about GMs having different styles reminds me of something i'm planning on trying out on the group next session. The Burning Wheel has "beliefs" which, in addition to defining the character, are explicitly a tool to define gameplay. That is, the GM can look at a character's beliefs, and know that that's what the player wants out of the game--why play a character questing for revenge, if you don't want to play about questing for revenge?

See, complex rules are a kludgy way to solve the problem of miscommunicated playstyles. If the problem is that the GM and players have different assumptions about how the game should go, isn't a better solution for the GM and players to talk about that and come to a shared understading of how the game should go? Surely that's better than relying on a complex ruleset that may define a playstyle that none of the players specifically wants. Yes, detailed rules will prevent arguments between the players, but unless they happen to define the playstyle you want, what's the point? Frex, let's say you *all* want a swashbuckling, free-flowing, bigger-than-life game, but have disagreements about exactly what that means--one person thinks "Errol Flynn", another thinks "Jet Li", and a third thinks "The Matrix". Obviously you're gonna have conflicts--especially if the Errol Flynn guy is applying those standards as GM, while the Jet Li and Matrix players are trying to do stunts that match what they think the genre should be. But using baseline D&D3E, while providing a common baseline, will provide a baseline that doesn't match *any* of the players' desires.

Instead, you could stick with the relatively light system, and just add one specific rule, defining the standards of reality and heroicism.

What's funny (to me) about this is that when someone comes up with an anecdote that doesn't jive with our own particular anecdotes, we yell "that's not proof! That's an anecdote!" all in a thread that's essentially about beating up the only guy that *has* proof.

If anecdotes that don't agree with you don't make proof, and empirical evidence doesn't make proof - nothing makes proof.

Sheesh!

 

[Gentlegamer]

all in a thread that's essentially about beating up the only guy that *has* proof.

Proof that the only reason people think that "rules lite" RPGs are "simpler" or "better" is because they desperately want it to be true?

I think not.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

I think all we've proved in these threads is that playstyles are sufficiently different that we have a hard time understanding what a foreign playstyle is like. So if different systems appeal to different play styles, it's difficult to understand why that would be the case. (Well, that's what I've learned from the thread, anyway.)

And I think that is a point that applies right back to the original post. RyanD talked about a study that had a single playstyle addressed with multiple systems, and lighter systems didn't speed things up. That makes me think that the control variable (play style, for instance frequent rules disputes and a high focus on detail) was more important than the modified variable (complexity of system).

I've said for a while that I'd grant that a rules-light system won't be faster than D&D if you play it exactly the same way that you'd play D&D. But it's probably more relevant to look at how different systems work when used with the style of play they support.

 

[CSgeekHero]

Maybe this is just pie-in-the-sky, but I think that the potential market for people who would play games about "Fictional characters dealing with compelling situations" is a lot larger than the market for games about "Party of adventurers dealing with conflicts, including tactical realistic combat, to grow in power". But people in the first category aren't going to be interested in complex mechanics or extensive prep time.

link

The above link goes to a story about video games. It is from 2002 and its forcast is close, but has actually been a little conservative on strength of games and the weakness of movies.
Video games are for all intents and purposes based on wargaming and OD&D. You hack-n-slash, collect treasure, level up. This is the essentially the same as "...dealing with conflicts, including tactical combat, to grow in power". Without video games they would be playing D&D, many of them do anyway.

SweeneyTodd your pie-in-the-sky hope isn't there. If you are designing an rpg to draw interest in new gamers, you are going to use a paradime that is easy for the newbie to understand. What market are you going to tap? The wannabe arteest who is really some frustrated actor or the gamer, average age 28 to 30 who is willing to spend the money for their fun?
If I were to try and create a new game, I'd be aiming high for a piece of the gamers budget.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

If I were to try and create a new game, I'd be aiming high for a piece of the gamers budget.

That market's already taken, that's my perspective. Compete with D&D at what it does? No thank you.

Maybe it's more of a brainstorming exercise. What if there was something inherent to roleplaying that appealed to people who watch Law and Order? Or watch "chick flicks"? Or read mystery novels? (Hey, there's "How to Host a Murder" games out there; they're not considered roleplaying, but they involve playing a character and solving a scenario.)

What would Bridget Jones, the RPG, look like? No rules for falling damage. Or maybe just damage to your Self-Esteem when you slip and fall on your behind while chatting up a guy. The rules would probably deal mostly with relationships and personal hangups, and conflict would be about balancing "be a successful independent woman" with "find true love". Or something, I'm just thinking out loud here.

It wouldn't use D&D 3.5, that's for sure. Okay, sure, no gamers would buy it. But the whole "How to Host a Murder" thing makes me think. I imagine those games could be improved by importing techniques from traditional RPGs. Not all of them, but maybe one or two. Maybe there's a theoretical Bridget Jones RPG that someday comes out that has an interesting technique we could import into traditional roleplaying.

That's sort of what I'm getting at. When we focus our attention solely on "roleplaying as it is now", we miss out on some interesting possibilities. That has nothing to do with forcing a change to roleplaying as it is now.

 

[The_Universe]

Proof that the only reason people think that "rules lite" RPGs are "simpler" or "better" is because they desperately want it to be true?

I think not.

Now you're mixing posts so you can stay mad. You're combining one thing that Mr. Dancey *does* have proof of with a later statement in which he details his conclusions *from* the empirical evidence.

The proof is about observable speed, not about preference.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Video games are for all intents and purposes based on wargaming and OD&D. You hack-n-slash, collect treasure, level up. This is the essentially the same as "...dealing with conflicts, including tactical combat, to grow in power". Without video games they would be playing D&D, many of them do anyway.

That's a gross oversimplification of the video game market. Actually, it's just plain wildly inaccurate.

The Economist article isn't talking about the strength of PC or console RPGs (more on the latter below), it's talking about ALL video games.

There's certainly a D&D-derived core to games like Final Fantasy and Baldur's Gate, and even those further afield, like Zelda or Devil May Cry, that basically revolve around 'killing things and taking their stuff.' Except that Zelda and Final Fantasy don't revolve around killing things and taking their stuff. Final Fantasy 8 essentially did away with treasure, and the past five installments of the main series have been, at least from their designers' perspectives, more about exploring themes and telling stories than about hacking and slashing. Zelda and its derivatives are and always have been primarily about solving puzzles rather than fighting.

Lacking those games, video game players who don't already *might* play D&D. They might also be turned off by the complexity of the rules (certainly not an issue in any of those games except the D&D licensed Baldur's Gate), the lack of a strong GM-led storyline, the discomfort 'let's pretend' causes in some adults, or even, ironically, the emphasis on killing things and taking their stuff.

Most fighting games have no 'leveling up' element whatsoever. They have almost no D&D derivation, except perhaps in their often fantastic settings - but D&D is hardly the original wellspring of fantasy.

Sports games sometimes include a 'leveling up' element, but this traces its ancestry to fantasy sports, not roleplaying games.

Platform games, first person shooters, (older, pre-WC3) real-time strategy games, most turn-based strategy games, free-roaming thug sims, flight simulators, rail shooters, dance games, espionage actioners, puzzle games, party games - these may have some D&D roots, but most of them are much more closely related to some other type of non-electronic game.

Some of these markets probably can't be tapped by non-electronic games, some of them never will be because the electronic form covers their needs, some are already covered by games like Axis & Allies, Monopoly, Risk, Clue, or, indeed, Dungeons & Dragons.

But to claim that if electronic games were to go away, their players would ALL (or even mostly) play D&D seems specious at best.

 

[CSgeekHero]

That market's already taken, that's my perspective. Compete with D&D at what it does? No thank you.

Go tell Mongoose and Green Ronin to stop making d20/OGL books. Go tell the creators of Dawning Star, Bulldogs!, Traveller20, and so on that the market is taken and no one plays d20 for any genre/setting other than D&D.

The point I made has to do with the type of game that people play. The video game market is full of people who expect a certain type of game. I play video games, they have replaced rpgs as my main source of game entertainment. However, I don't always play video games. I like rpgs to give me a break from the typical round of Grand Theft Auto or KotOR or Full Spectrum Warrior. The kind of rpg I like to play...a game with a strong gamist/simulationist style. So, I am part of that market that d20/GURPS/Hero has tapped into for a revenue stream. Speaking from that demographic, I need a rules heavier system and I am not atypical of this particular market.