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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Morrow" data-source="post: 2393570" data-attributes="member: 27012">And you keep missing the point that the option to use codified ones is not present in many rule-light games.  Please bear in mind that I am not simply talking about D&D vs. C&C here but also Hero vs. Fudge, etc. and I personally have my doubts about whether C&C is rule-light from what I've seen of it.  It's not simply DCs but little things like falling damage.  D&D and Hero have rules for how much damage a character takes if they fall a given distance.  Fudge purposely has no falling damage rules.  In Fudge, there is no codified system to start with or modify.  The GM is left to just make it up.Absolutely.  And I'll happily suggest that groups that share a similar "assessment of reality" give rule-light (or even nearly rule-free) games a try.  They work wonderfully.  But that's only a fraction of the role-playing hobby and market.  I'm not claiming that rule-light games can't work.  That would be pretty foolish since I've played plenty of them and introduced Fudge to my group.  I'm also not saying that they don't solve some problems that rule-heavy games have.  I'm simply saying that the introduce some of their own problems -- problems that all those rules are there to avoid.The point you are missing is that when I play the Hero System or d20 D&D, I almost never have to ask the GM a question like that because I can figure it out myself while the GM is doing something else.  Remember, I'm speaking from the experience of playing both kinds of games here, with more than one group.  This isn't theory.  Perhaps your milage varies but, yeah, I can notice the difference between having to ask the GM a lot of questions and being able to figure things out on my own.No.  But you are using examples of D&D play that are as close as possible to rule-light play to claim that there aren't differences while downplaying the situations where they are very different.Yes, and it's the level and frequency of those judgement calls that make all the difference.  On the one hand, it takes much more time to use codified rules, especially if you have to look them up, than for the GM to make a decision by fiat.  On the other hand, the GM's fiat decisions are not nearly as predictable and consistent as the codified rules.  It's possible to resolve many situations in rule-heavy games with few or even no judgement calls on the part of a GM.  That's simply not possible in most rule-light situations.  And dwelling on the elements of a rule-heavy game that do rely on a GM's judgement calls is not going to change that difference.  Basically, you are talking about the elements of D&D that can be used like C&C and now how they can be used differently than C&C.You are also skipping over other differences like feats and criticals which, oddly enough, a lot of people using C&C seem to want to import from D&D.  Why is that?Perhaps that's because you play D&D differently than the groups I've role-played with do.  Or perhaps, as I suspect, C&C isn't really what I'd consider "rule-light".  But comparing d20 D&D or Hero (unarguably rule-heavy) to Fudge or "high rolls are good" (unarguably rule-light), the level of GM judgement necessary to arrive at a ruling and the amount of subjectivity involved is substantial and impossible to ignore.  Remember, I'm speaking from experience as a person who actually prefers rule-light games much of the time.  Yes, but what it means to try to trip someone, tumble through their space, or knock their weapon out of their hand will be defined in many rule-heavy games but not many rule-light games.  Where objective rules cover all of those situations in a rule-heavy game, subjective GM assessments must step in when there aren't rules. The word "fair" is so subjective as to be useless.  Take a good look at various threads here asking whether a DM did something "fair" or not and the number of people who come down on both sides.  That's a big part of the problem that rules solve.  It's a lot easier to question whether a subjective ruling is "fair" or not than it is to question a set of published rules that are available to everyone to review and clearly aren't based on personal issues.  But I do understand your point.  Can some GMs run a good C&C game that feels very much like a D&D game for certain groups?  Of course.  But that's looking at a best case scenario.  What's the worst case scenario?What you are ignoring is that rule-light games don't simply make talking to the GM to know all the relevant details important -- they make it necessary in a way that it isn't in many rule-heavy situations.  You make it sound like communicating with the GM is a plus.  It's often not.  The GM's time is limited and the GM quickly becomes a speed bottleneck if they have to spend too much time explaining all the "relevant details" to allow players to make even simple choices.  That's not theory.  That's a real problem that I've encountered, both as GM and player. Second, it has nothing to do with "hiding" anything.  Over half the players in my group also GM, both rule-light and rule-heavy games.  We all know what a GM does.  It has to do with how the modifiers are determined and whether the players have access to how a situation will be resolved or not.  Perhaps you play with GMs who like to fiddle with a lot of subjective situational modifiers.  I don't.  If you play with GMs who strongly prefer to use their personal subjective assessment of the difficulty rather than just pick the closest codified modifier, it doesn't surprise me that C&C appeals to you and your group because it's closer to what you want to do.  It really does sound to me like you don't want to just use the codified modifiers and really want the GM to set their own modifiers.  If that's the case, of course C&C appeals to you.  Yes, the RAW says that the GM can set whatever modifier they want.  That's because the RAW tries to be all things to all people (and, yes, I can point you to a Ryan Dancey essay that explains how and why).  When my group switches from a rule-light game (where the GM subjectively picks the difficulty) to a rule-heavy game (where the modifiers are codified), we do so specifically because we are looking for codified modifiers.  And, yeah, codified modifiers are pretty useless if you ignore them and just let the GM make up their own numbers most of the time.My experience, not only with D&D but Hero and other heavy systems, says otherwise.  You seem to assume that the GM will fiddle with the modifiers and difficulty equally in either system.  In my experience, that's not the case.  If you play D&D with DMs who prefer to set their own difficulties and modifiers rather than using the stock modifiers codified in the book, it really doesn't surprise me that you prefer C&C because those codified difficulties and modifiers are only going to get in the way if you don't actually use them.In fact, that's my observation with most rule-light advocates all the way down to Fudge and Risus.  If the GM feels that they subjectively know what a modifier or difficulty should be (or even how a scene should turn out), they are at best going to consider codified rules that are close to their subjective assessment useless and at worst going to resent codified rules that disagree with their subjective assessement.  If you don't need a rule, by all means cut it out.  People are amazed when I tell them that we run fast combat in Hero.  How do we do it?  We rip stuff out that we don't need that slows the combat down.  But that doesn't mean that the complexity or codified rules are useless for everyone.Yes, but in D&D, the process can occur simply by reading the rulebook.  In a rule-light game, it requires experience in play.  Given that C&C is so close to D&D, it doesn't surprise me that they feel the same because many C&C GMs have played D&D and have probably internalized the D&D values, as have their players who are familiar with D&D.  I'm not limiting my observations to D&D or C&C.  I'm talking about Hero, Warhammer FRP, Fudge, OTE, Risus, etc.  And how might C&C run for a group with a GM that had never played D&D before?You keep focusing on what the RAW requires.  My focus is on how I've actually seen it used in practice.  Perhaps there are DMs who like to fiddle with all the DCs and modifiers so that the final value is always subjective.  I've never seen it played that way.  Not with my group.  Not with another group I play with (this is the first thing I've ever played with them).  Not when I playtested some future Goodman Games adventures.  The GMs all pretty much use the codified modifiers when they apply.  And regardless of how a GM can use the RAW, a rule-light GM can't default to codified rules, modifiers, and difficulties.  They are required to make a subjective ruling.Step back from C&C because I'm not even sure I'd call that a rule-light game.  Try a game of Fudge Fantasy or Risus, which will more clearly illustrate the point.  Your focus seems to be on DCs and modifiers.  I'm also talking well beyond that.If it had codified modifiers for that baseline, you wouldn't need the formulation of consensus amongst the group as to what those modifiers should be.  You can look them up and apply them.  And, again, I'm not reading "rule-light" as just "C&C".And, yes, those cases are probably very similar to C&C.  It's not a matter of playing by the rules but how you use the rules and how you can use the rules.  Personally, I don't see the point of using a rule-heavy game if you aren't going to use the codified rules in a reasonably objective way.  If you want a lot of the situations to rely on the GM's subjective assessment of the situation, then by all means go rule-light. That the D&D RAW allows the DM to introduce subjective situational modifiers into the task resolution process does not mean that the D&D RAW requires that the DM do so, nor does it mean that all DMs do.  If the DM wants to be subjective then they could certainly use C&C or an even lighter system and get similar results.  That's not the point.  The point is that the rule-light GM can't lean on objective rules and codified modifiers and difficulties that don't exist in a lighter rule system.  You seem to think those objective rules and codified modifiers and difficulties should be largely altered or ignored.  I don't.  If you do ignore them then it does make sense not to bother with them in the first place.  But your premise, that they should be largely altered or ignored, is not universally desirable because it creates its own problems.Have you ever tried a really rule-light game like Fudge, Risus, or Over the Edge?The reason why there are dice in role-playing games is to simulate the fact that what a person (character) wants to do does not always determine how well they actually do it.  A GM may very much want to be consistent, predictable, and fair, but it doesn't always turn out that way.  YMMV.</blockquote>

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