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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SweeneyTodd" data-source="post: 2385939" data-attributes="member: 9391">On the "20 minutes of game in 4 hours" quote: That was Ryan Dancey. (The quote that started the thread was his response to someone who responded to that, saying "Wouldn't simpler rules help?"BryonD: I would agree with you that if you are playing a game where it matters how much you can lift, then you should use a ruleset that handles that. If you want everything quantified, then use a rules-heavy system that quantifies everything.I'm saying this kind of stuff doesn't come up in my games. Seriously. Nobody sits around wondering if they can lift 250 pounds or not. (I recognize this is an extreme example, but I'm going for a general principle. I'm not hung up on the specifics of deadlifting.)I've had characters have to struggle to move some heavy debris to save a friend. They had a stat that measured their physical ability, and they rolled against a difficulty that represented that it was a heavy weight and they had to do it quickly. If I'd played that scene in D&D, I would have looked at the heaviest character's Strength stat, seen how much they could barely lift, and made the weight of the debris that much. Either way, the difficulty was the same. It didn't make any difference.But wait, you might say. What if he was strong enough that it wasn't a question, he could definately do it. Then in any system, I wouldn't have had him roll. If it isn't dramatic or interesting to do something, why are we using the rules for it?I think I see the biggest sticking point: None of this stuff is real. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Seriously, though, it's not. The GM invented the debris. We're all imaging that it's there, pinning this guy's poor friend. The conflict isn't about mass vs. muscle capacity -- it's about this guy trying to save his friend. And the thing is, the player was fine with it. He did something heroic, saved his friend, and everybody went "Man, he's strong." Nobody went back with a scale to measure the debris and write down how much weight he lifted.What I'm trying to say is that it's entirely possible to play a challenging, believable game where the mechanics handle "can you achieve your goal", without knowing concrete specifics about everything. If you want to know concrete specifics about everything, I got nothin'. You'd probably hate my GMing. I strive hard to present a believable, interesting world, and it works for my players and their preferences, but it wouldn't work for everybody.If the concern is that it's not fair, well, I challenge the PCs with a variety of conflicts. Some are easy enough that we don't roll. Some are difficult and risky, and the system resolves those with a relevant element of chance. Some are impossible, and must be overcome in a different way. It'd be exactly the same if I played by-the-book rules-heavy, except that I'd add an additional step after deciding the difficulty where I reverse-engineered from the numbers to determine the specifics.Because if it's not challenging and interesting, why are you using the rules to determine the outcome? And if the rules you use make those conflicts challenging and interesting, why use more?That's just my angle.</blockquote>

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