Interesting Ryan Dancey comment on "lite" RPGs

[fredramsey]

Christ.

Had to read the rest of the thread this morning.

It actually managed to go further downhill.

Wow.

 

[Turanil]

Especially when swung vigorously against the side of the player's head.

You mean fredramsey's?

 

[Psion]

Absolutely! People who wear their hearts on their sleeves deserve to get bruised now and then.

KIDDING! Sorry, but I didn't see my comment as a hard core slam.

Now if I said, "Your mom doesn't think outside the box," I could see your point.

Really, people.

I'm not insulted (though I must say, if it were my players you were referring to, it might have been) so much as I think it's a totally bogus cop-out when it comes to defending a game.

Let me tell you a story. The title of this story is "Why Psion Doesn't Run Hero".

Psion loves Hero. Psion thinks that Hero is a way cool game. In some ways, he thinks it out-cools D&D. Why? Because it lets him craft anything and have rigorous mechanical support for it that he much prefers to ad hoccing everything.

But back in college, Psion had a group. There were many players in this group, but one of particular interest. We'll call him Rob. Because, well, that's his name.

Psion is running a rip-roaring game of hero, but find that Rob routinely avoids running characters that use magic. I soon discover that Rob does not use magic because he doesn't grok the power system. Well, Rob's a college student, so he should understand the basic math that goes into making a Hero character right?

I thought so, but it occurs to me that whether or not he's capable, that's work to him. It occurs to me that gaming being a leisure activity, it's not my place to make him do things he doesn't like. And by running hero, I was limiting his options.

It was that moment that pushed me away from hero and back towards D&D. Yeah, it's not as flexible as Hero, or many other systems. But IME, most people grok D&D, and can play any character type they care to play if they can play at all.

Later, I got into verbal fencing with GURPS fans, who in answering my charges that IME GURPS players too easily build characters with scads of half point skills it was my "players fault."

Such arguments firmed up my philosophy that it is not the job of the players to support the game, but vice versa. If your players don't enjoy a game, that is not a slight to the players. You can't obligate the players to fit the game, much less judge them.

I could easily slam rules light players for their lack of mathematical ability, but given my experience with Rob, I tried to avoid going that route because I consider it the "low road". It's not the player's job to fit the game. It's the game's job to support the players.

So, I'll own that if D&D accounting is not too your liking, you should probably play something with less accounting, or (at the very least) make efforts to minimize it. But by the same token, if the lack of robustness is limiting the actions your players consider, I'd say that is on the game, not on the players.

It is easier to change the game you are playing, or to change rules of a game, than it is to change people. Games are dispensible.

 

[Remathilis]

I don't have much, if any, experience with SWd20, but I find it hard to believe that it would take less time to make a character than "Choose a template, split up 7D worth of skills, and make up a name."


In D6, you roll Dodge once per round, not per attack. So that takes slightly longer, but not that much longer. And you don't have lots of hp, so fights tend to be over sooner for that reason.


That one's a poor example, since it's spelled out in the rules: "Swinging across a shaft in the Death Star on a rope with a princess in your arms" is the example used for a Difficult (16-20) climbing/jumping roll. Since you're dodging at the same time, you get -1D to your skill (for performing multiple actions).

Shows thats its been too long since I cracked the WEG SW revised books...

 

[Desdichado]

One of the most frusterating experiences I had as a GM (in an RPGA event, no less) was trying to run a chase scene between the party and a halfling wererat in the middle of an orchard. .......Another pull-your-hair-out moment from the RPGA:.......

I think the lesson to be learned there has a lot more to do with the RPGA and much less to do with rules heavy vs. rules light though.

 

[diaglo]

I think the lesson to be learned there has a lot more to do with the RPGA and much less to do with rules heavy vs. rules light though.

ditto.

diaglo "hasn't had a good recent experience with the RPGA since around 1983 or so" Ooi

 

[fredramsey]

Especially when swung vigorously against the side of the player's head.

You mean fredramsey's?

Oh yeah? Well... you... I mean, yo mama...

BWAAAAAH! Mommy, the mean old forum man talked bad about me! WAAAAAH!

 

[Desdichado]

Mr. Mearls,
first, let us put some hypthesis:
For "rules-lite" system I mean a system that:
1) allows me short preparation time for creating NPCs, "monsters" and encounters
2) allows fast character creation
3) does not need reference to volumes just to adjudicate an action so that players won't throw the books at your face
in the above, for "short" I mean a fuzzy definition which can be roughly translated in the order of tens of minutes, not going over the hour (or more as in The Other System).

You have a lot of nerve posting all those subjective criteria and then taking anyone to task for the "scientificality" of their argument. If that's what you mean by rules light, how is d20 not rules light?
1) I've never spent more than an hour tops preparing for monsters and encounters for an adventure that will take me through 4-6 evenings of gameplay. And an hour is a strong outlier -- half an hour or less is more normal. And much of that time is not preparing mechanics either.
2) With decisive players, d20 character creation can take 5 minutes or less for any character you can think of. If I've spent more time on it than that, it's been because I've been sweating non-mechanical things like being wishy-washy on character concept or background.
3) With the exception of the massive spell and magic item lists, d20 easily fits all of its rules in less than "volumes"--every game other than D&D uses the system in a single book that includes setting information, and often a sample adventure or two too. Adjudicating an action is covered in the skill user chapter or the combat chapter, with some support from the GMing chapter of a game like d20 Call of Cthulhu, Wheel of Time, Star Wars or d20 Modern. Other than character creation (including feats), those three chapters are all of the rules of the d20 system. And other than the aforementioned spells and magic items, that's pretty much true for the D&D variety of d20 as well.

So, as you can see, there are lots of rules lite systems which do not need 1 PHB, 2 DMG, N (for N large) Monster manuals, 1 Dummy Guide and what not.

That point would make more sense if it didn't also apply to every d20 game other than D&D--and the reason D&D is larger is because of massive lists of spells, magic items and monsters--all optional rules that are only used if the GM brings it into the game, for the most part.

I understand that you both are on the payroll of WotC, but there is no need to say blatantly wrong things. You are free to say your opinion, but NOT to pass it for science.

As has been pointed out, you understand incorrectly. And Dancey and Mearls are stating their opinion. I don't think either has tried to pass that "research" as definitive.

And for that matter, Mr. Analytic, since you (presumably) don't know any better than us exactly what methods were used, you can't do more than question his methods. You certainly can't condemn them when they have not been publicly described in any detail.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

My experience with rules-heavy vs. rules-light gaming:

We've been running a FUDGE sci-fi game using the basic rules plus some of those plug-and-play supplements (eg. a combat system). It's pretty good. Most of what we do is role-playing, although a couple of the members of the group are gun-happy and find any excuse to turn the game into a firefight, which is interesting considering that it was meant to be a more interactive and character-driven game. However, FUDGE is up to the task.

The mechanics of FUDGE, from the GM's perspective, are exactly like a DM working out what skill a particular action would fall under. There's a bit of fuzziness, but everything can be more or less easily fit into a category. Also, given that the players design their own skills by writing down a list of things they're good at and giving them each a modifier, it means that if the character wants to try something, he's likely got a skill to do it with, and therefore a mechanism to roll against. This makes adjudication on the fly a lot easier, and a GM can literally stat up an entire character in 5 minutes if he needs to. What FUDGE lacks is depth of specifics. If you're into complexity in your rules (or even subsets of rules, like if you want a detailed cyberpunk computer hacking system) you either have to write it yourself or find someone who has done so on the internet and plug it into your system.

As far as speed goes, FUDGE does leave D&D in its dust. Combat rounds usually take exactly as long as a player needs to describe what he's doing. However, the results are vaguely defined most of the time, so there's a lot of "fill" required in the narration by the GM to explain what happens in terms of degrees of success, etc. We can get a full 4 hours of play out of 4 hours of game, and a combat usually lasts no more than half an hour if there are many participants. It seems exciting and fast-paced.

However, the tactical side of things is a bit fuzzed out. FUDGE seems like it would make for good swashbuckling, but poor special-ops tactical missions. It's also not for beginners. A good GM is necessary.

 

[Rasyr]

Furthermore, please, pay attention when hosting people like Mr. Dancey who SEEM to talk about science and experiments without obviously knowing what they are speaking about. I speak from a professional viewpoint, being an Associate Researcher in Statistics. And what Mr. Dancey made to pass as an experiment, is, plainly put, ludicrous.

I understand that you both are on the payroll of WotC, but there is no need to say blatantly wrong things. You are free to say your opinion, but NOT to pass it for science.

Technically, Dancey is not on WotC's payroll as he stopped working for them a number of years ago, however, he continues to espouse propaganda and theories, and suggestions all meant to further his own private agenda of supporting the OGL and/or WotC. (This is born out by watching his actions and reading his statements over the past couple of years).

Dancey also has a bit of a history of skewing facts to support his own agendas. This bit about the watching of groups through is two way mirror is nothing more than drivel because he does not support any of his observations with the details of his "test". What is the gaming experience of the subject? What is the "rules lite" game being used? What is HIS definition of rules lite? He never tells you, and I wouldn't expect him to as doing so would most likely invalidate his "experiment". To him the only "facts" that seem to matter are those that support his positions.

In regards to Mr. Mearls' opinion about rules-lite games, all I can say about that is that it appears that he is or has been heavily influenced by Dancey. The Prediction blog, in which the quoted Dancey remark was a comment, seems (at least to me) to have been coached, or influenced by Dancey's own opinions on the matter. That prediction almost sounds like Dancey's wishlist of events to happen to the gaming market (as it would of course aid him in his agenda of advancing WotC). Mr. Mearls did not explain anything behind his reasoning or thought processes for that prediction, yet lo and behold, along comes Dancey who does give an explanation for them. It is also interesting to note that several of his predictions seem to only be viable if 4e were to come to pass soon (such as a number of companies dying within a year - this would mirror the collapse of a number of companies when 3.5 came out).

Interesting side note: A few months ago, in one of the many 4e threads, Mr. Mearls stated that he believed that 4e would be coming in a year or two. Yet, his prediction says "hypothetical" 4e. A change in tune? or an NDA?

As to the subject of rules lite versus rules heavy, IMO, neither is better or worse than the other, and the definition of both IS highly subjective to the individual looking at them.

For example, take Rolemaster and D&D. In my opinion, Rolemaster is rules lite and D&D is rules heavy. Why? It is simple, Rolemaster has very few rules by exception, whereas D&D has a number of them. Both systems have a universal mechanic (which is virtually identical except for the size of the dice used in resolution). Yes, Rolemaster has a lot of tables/charts, but guess what, those are not rules, those are just tables. So, while Rolemaster is table-heavy, it is, IMO, rules lite. But for D&D, which is relatively table-lite, it is rules heavy because it has lots of special case, or situational rules, that may or may not follow the core mechanics of the system.

Neither is a bad system, better than the other, they are just different systems. As different systems, they support different styles of play. This is the major difference between rules lite and rules heavy games, they support different styles of play. So, of course, somebody who prefers one is not likely to like the other, at least for a given specific style of play.