Interesting Ryan Dancey comment on "lite" RPGs

[Quasqueton]

My first "rpg" sessions were exactly like this: my friend was DM, and I was the player. We had no rules (didn't have a copy of D&D). He drew dungeons and I was a warrior or thief or wizard (changed each time). He adjudicated whatever actions I wanted without dice or set rules, just his judgement. Those sessions were the most pure and "outside the box" RPG sessions I have ever participated in.

Serious question (not a bait): why did you move away from that and into a game system? Why don't you go back to playing with absolutely no rules, just DM adjudication?

Quasqueton

 

[reveal]

Patryn of Elvenshae is a putz!

*stoke*stoke*stoke*

 

[ThirdWizard]

More rules = more options? I think not.

...

Rules tend to train you to think in terms of the rules. The fewer rules in general, the less constraint.

Then what do more rules mean? D&D has rules for grappling, tripping, disarming, overruning, bull rushing, etc etc.

Are you claiming you are just as likely to attempt to do these things in a game that does not have these options (like O/BD&D)? You saying that you are more likely to attempt to do interesting and neat stunts in a rules-lite game than D&D becasue what?

My thought is that it isn't the game system that encourages these actions. It is the players and the GM.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Patryn of Elvenshae is a putz!

True, but irrelevant to the subject at hand!

 

[GMSkarka]

Some posters, however, couldn't contain themselves with attacking the position, and decided to attack the person instead. I called them on it.

...and some posters, with first-hand knowledge of the person, find it impossible to separate the person from the position, and explained why.

 

[Pants]

Really? How about when you factor in the skills and powers books? Or the two or three variants on running in the PHB and so on

I never got into those books.
I'm just talking Core books only really.

Besides, I never said that 2e was consistent, just there were less rules to worry about.

 

[WizarDru]

And the rules lite fans would respond, "So what?"

Good for them. That's why we have different systems. I thought that was clear.

Granted, the Paladin and the Ranger had spells (and why the Ranger had spells is still a head scratcher, but I digress). But the point still stands: Do you really need rules for every aspect of a character? There was nothing stopping you in Basic D&D from playing a noble knight or an outdoorsman ranger. It did require imagination...

All well and good...but to some of us, it feels false and arbitrary with no real benefit, cost or difference other than lip service. Every wizard was as good as every other wizard. You could pretend that Mortimer was a great illusionist, while Snerd was a master necromancer...but that's all you were doing, IMHO: pretending. The rules didn't support such an option, except by DM fiat. That, in fact, is why we stopped using the Castle Falkenstein's native system and converted to GURPS (a couple of years ahead of the official conversion). The mechanic in the game basically made the players slaves to the DM's whim...and worse, it felt boring. Every conflict was resolved in the same dull, unsatisfying way. This is not a condemnation of many rules-light systems that have more satisfying mechanics, by any stretch: but the point is that the complete lack of specificity made the entire endeavour unsatisfying. It felt one-step removed from simply playing pretend...and if that's the case, why bother a game system at all?

Some of us simply prefer more complex systems. If you prefer to think of us as unimaginative, that's your perogative.

 

[Desdichado]

Serious question (not a bait): why did you move away from that and into a game system? Why don't you go back to playing with absolutely no rules, just DM adjudication?

I've given some pretty serious thought to --if not exactly that question, at least very closely related ones-- and I think the reason I don't play that way is that it sucks, mostly. It takes a very special group and GM to pull it off and not have it be a very frustrating experience for everyone involved. And I say this as a relatively supportive person in the rules lite spectrum--I ignore huge chunks of the d20 rules on principle.

Yes, it does impose some constraints, but what isn't being said is that constraints aren't always bad.

 

[Quasqueton]

"The fewer rules in general, the less constraint."

Then what do more rules mean? D&D has rules for grappling, tripping, disarming, overruning, bull rushing, etc etc.

Imagine a game with so many rules that the Players are completely paralyzed and unable to play at all. Reading the rules sucks all the imagination out of the reader's brain, and he is left an automaton.



Quasqueton

 

[Plane Sailing]

But look at Dogs in the Vineyard, and it explains what the game's about, how to make a character, and how to resolve conflicts. Then the GM's section explains how to create a scenario from scratch, specifically, in clear terms. I wouldn't give D&D 3.5 or Everway to a group who'd never played before, but if they were interesting in the setting for DitV, I think they could pick it up without help quite easily.

I had the great enjoyment of sitting down for a game of DitV at a con a month ago - the setting was different (jedi padawan in an outpost) but the DM explained the basic mechanics for us in about 10-15 mins, we chose some pregenerated characters (and how much time is spent generating new characters from scratch anyway? not many times per campaign in my experience) and we had three hours of excellent fun. Excellent fun.

Cheers