NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MoogleEmpMog" data-source="post: 2385786" data-attributes="member: 22882">Have you ever played a video game?  Final Fantasy 4 is a rules-lite system; Final Fantasy Tactics is comparatively rules-heavy but rules-lite by pen and paper standards; Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil is considerably heavier, being based on 3.x D&D.If you were to translate FF4's mechanics into a pen and paper RPG, it would be a relatively rules-lite system with a single unified combat mechanic and a small number of spells or powers per character (at 40th level about equivalent to a 1st-level d20 character).  Less complex than BD&D, and with the same amount of out-of-combat conflict resolution inherent to the system (that is, none).  Unlike any version of D&D, but much like, say, Tri-Stat, positioning and movement would be abstract, limited, at most, to declaring one line of PCs/NPCs as being ahead of the other for protective purposes.  Like C&C or BD&D or AD&D, every character is representative of an archetype, and he cannot change it or customize it within the framework of the rules.  In the electronic game, non-combat interaction is either ignored (most skill checks) or run by 'GM fiat' (diplomacy, traps) - just like in a rules-lite system.An FFT character has the same amount of out-of-combat conflict resolution built into the system as an FF4 character, but considerably more complexity in combat.  By level 40, he likely has levels in about a half-dozen classes and he can set a custom suite of abilities for combat, some of which would likely have out-of-combat implications as well in a pen-and-paper game.  Movement is precise and Z-axis is important.  However, an FFT character never has as many options during the course of play as even a BD&D character, and less in character creation than a D&D 3.x character.A RttToEE character is a 3.x character, basically.Rules-lite systems not only translate perfectly well to video games, they are the clear standard.  Non-D&D computer games also usually run on 'rules-lite(er)' systems.</blockquote>

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