Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Henry" data-source="post: 2400441" data-attributes="member: 158">A few counterpoints to think about:Yes, but when was the last time you were in a game with an average DM? Someone who you felt you either (A) couldn't trust to make a sensible ruling where the books didn't cover it, or (B) had a hard time thinking outside the box when you wanted something other than a strictly iconic character? One of the chief complaints from lots of inexperienced or newer players was the lack of flexibility in the basic rules, from AD&D onward to 2nd edition AD&D. It was part of the appeal of systems like Runequest, Rolemaster, GURPS, Ars Magica, Vampire: the Masquerade, etc. - systems that predated current games by decades in some cases. Where people didn't like classed and leveled systems, or wanted robust skill systems, etc. Hundreds of thousands of gamers over the past 20 years either experimented with these systems, or left AD&D entirely for them.In a game with a good, experienced GM, who knows what their players want and how to entertain them, the level of detail in the system is not as important as the flexibility of the GM and the trust he/she can inspire in the players. On the other hand, where the GM is less devoted to this, the level of specificity in the system is preferred to having rules that are entirely GM-created.On the other hand, it is a mistake to assume that a more rules-complex system is either inferior, or suited ONLY for less skillful GMs. Some of the best GMs I've ever seen run with both d20 systems of all sorts, as well as systems like Paranoia and Call of Cthulhu. One I know ran CoC as the most rules light game you've ever seen, because he ran it without even having read the rules. <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=":)" /> And the questions aren't as simple as "who goes first" or death from one save; it's usually more like, "what do you mean my fighter who was raised in the military can't drill-instruct?" or "why doesn't my wizard know a darned thing about planar cosmology?" Without a GM that doesn't realize how far he can bend the system as needed, and do so in a way that keeps his player's trust, then a Rules-Light system appears to be a rules-confining system. If I abbreviated several of the sections (such as saving throws, spells, and combat bonuses) then a 3E character would look relatively pithy, too. An OD&D character will be a shorter stat block, for sure, but his story is not told in that stat block, either -- like whether that 17 CHA means he is a leader of men, or whether he's just a slick-talker (not everyone is both), or whether despite his 11 DEX he is a skilled climber, or can tie a decent sailor's knot, or is a world-class cook, etc. All these things with a good GM are explainable -- but it goes to group dynamic, system preference, and just plain quality of the DM to whether they ARE explained or not. And speaking from personal experience, there are just as many average GM's now as there were 20 years ago.</blockquote>

Verification