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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Morrow" data-source="post: 2393737" data-attributes="member: 27012">My group meets all of those criteria(*), yet we still have problems with rule-light games and gravitate toward at least rule-moderate games.  They key element that's missing (and I'm talking about a group that's role-played with each other for years and, in some cases, well over a decade) is often a common understanding of how things are working in the game setting.  The rules serve as a sort of "common reality" for the group that we can all depend on.  (*) With respect to "blocking", we all tend to be "simulationists" and are all willing to live with the consequences of appropriate in character actions even if they don't follow story logic.  So that's more of a non-issue.I think the problem is often more fundamental than that.  I think the problem is that many rule-light games don't tell you how to actually use the system.  "Just make it up!" or "Just use your best guess!" doesn't really help someone who doesn't know where to start.Again, I think the issue is even more basic.  A person who knows how to figure out what happens doesn't need rules.  A person who knows what they want to have happen next doesn't need dice.  Worse, if a person knows how to resolve a situation or what should happen, the rules or dice will only either confirm what they already know or give them the wrong result that they'll want to fudge around.  I think a lot of the advocacy for rule-light systems or diceless play comes from GMs and players who think they can do a better job than the rules of deciding what happens in the game.In fact, that's why I think that rule-light advocates often resent complex rules rather than simply being indifferent to them or finding them too complicated.  They resent the rules because the rules are worse than what they can do themselves.</blockquote>

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