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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Heard" data-source="post: 2387597" data-attributes="member: 7280">Thats exactly what I was thinking when I read it too. Some systems (any system, not just roleplaying games) can work without clear rules and procedures thanks to artful management (or GMing) but in the absence of that art they fall flat. And a lot of people mistake themselves when they state things like "I don't want people telling me what to do" or mistake their own expertness when applying knowledge they're familiar with to people completely unfamiliar with a subject.To put it another way, I don't need clear instructions on how to do basic math but I might need clear instructions on how to perform brain surgery. Just because a bunch of brain surgeons don't want people telling them how to do cuts and clearly understand the implications of sawing into someone's noggin doesn't mean that the man on the street that you're supposed to be teaching brain surgery to does. I assume we're all more than a little familiar with roleplaying just by our presence here on the boards, but my not-quite-teenaged daughter marvelled at me when she was starting her very first roleplaying experience (in a game I'd never played before) and I was able to provide "expert assistance" on her game without even reading the rules. Most of us have more than a little bit of training in the "artful management" side of GMing and tons of experience with the basics of roleplaying games, I'd venture that everyone here would need precise instructions on how to assemble death rayguns even if a bunch of dudes well familiar with death rayguns said that "rules lite" instructions were fine for assembling antimatter powerpacks.And really, some people just like less instruction and less rules in everything - and they look for artful management in all things rather than what might be seen as arbitrary restrictions. Once everyone knows what they're doing, there's nothing wrong with that - I'd be interested in a study with children though, on rules lite system morphing compared with rules heavy system compatibility. I know for a fact I stopped playing VtM because half the time the rules changed because of bad weather and car trouble, or astounding things could be accomplished with similar die rolls and a little bit of cleavage. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /></blockquote>

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