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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6095710" data-attributes="member: 42582">"Approve" might be too strong - I've personally always enjoyed heavy rules (I GMed Rolemaster for nearly 20 years), but like them to be built around a broadly coherent pattern (Rolemaster again, or 4e, would be examples).But I can certainly see the attraction of a lighter game! I really like the design of some light games like HeroQuest revised or Marvel Heroic RP.Now thats a good question!When I look at the light games I mentioned - HQ, MHRP - they use fairly clear advice and rules on mechanically framing and resolving conflicts to merge colour and action resolution. A lot of the weight falls on the GM's shoulders, but the players have to get into it too. This also works with "rulings vs rules".Here's an example from MHRP:Dr Stranger has the superpower "Alliterative Invocations", which lets him spend a "plot point" (= action point, fate point, hero point etc) to boost complications created using his Supreme Sorcery ability. "Complications" are a generic category of debuff in the MHRP system. There is nothing that tells you what particular complications sorcery can create in general, or Dr Strange can create in particular. All there is are rules for determining their rating on a common scale (they rate from d4 (mere nuisance that might even backfire) to one step above d12 (disabling). These same complicaiotn rules have to be used to adjudicate Dr Strange's sorcery and (say) an attempt by the White Queen to rip secrets from your mind using her telepathy. Once a character has a complication imposed upon him/her, the debuff works mechanically by grating a bonus to any character taking action against the debuffed character in which the complication would hinder that character. So suppose, playing Dr Strange, I conjure forth the Crimson Bands of Cytorak on an enemy and inflict a d8 complication. Now if another character takes an action against that enemy where the enemy would be disadvantaged by being bound by the Crimson Bands of Cytorak, the player of that other character gets a d8 bonus die in his/her dice pool.So we definitely have colour - the player of Dr Strange will be using alliterative invocations to get the benefits - but also action resolution consequences. A complication resulting from the Crimson Bands of Cytorak will affect different actions from a complication arising from having your mind read by the White Queen. But the actual adjuication relies heavily on the sensibilities of the players and GM - can the player come up with some idea about how/why the Crimson Bands of Cytorak will hinder the enemy resisting that player's PC's action? and does the GM agree with that suggested framing?This system relies on simple, common, reasonably transparent mechanics, plus a readiness on the part of players and GM to agree on what does or doesn't fall within genre and "verisimilitude" constraints. It will obviously break down under adversarial or even aggressive optimisation play, but has other mechanisms to try to discourage such play - eg a similarly light and open-ended approach to recovery, and "fail forward" resolution of PC failures, so the players don't have to win every time to avoid losing the game.Conversely, my one real objection to Moldvay Basic as a light system would be that its action resolution mechanics tend strongly towards PC death as the price of failure, which in turn gives players less scope to relax and approach things in a light and open-ended way, and makes "rulings not rules" easily turn into arguments and adversarial play, and generating the systemic pressure towards tightening things up (like AD&D), rather than leaving things loose and open and relying on "rulings not rules" to turn colour into action resolution.At this stage, the vibe I get from D&Dnext is a bit closer to Moldvay Basic than a system like MHRP.This is a good post, and gets to what I was trying to get to in my post upthread.What I'm tending to miss, though, is why Lasting Frost in 4e is bad, but Called Shot in D&Dnext is good. They both strike me as having meaning only with the particular details of the action resolution framework (damage rules in one case, crit hit rules in the other), and neither seems especially evocative on its own without that framework (eg neither seems to me to carry the story weight of "Alliterative Invocations", although admittedly I am a big Dr Strange fan).I agree that Archer and Blacksmith could carry the same weight as "Alliterative Invocations", but I'm not seeing how the system lets them do this except by mediation via the minutiae of action resolution.Having got to this point, I can see two different ways forward in my thinking. One is along the lines of [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] upthread - that what is being offered is better packaging of detailed rules elements. That makes some sense, but doesn't seem to eliminate the fiddly bits of 4e - just to add another way of cataloguing them (a bit like what they started doing with feats in Essentials).The second is that suggested by TwoSix in the post I quoted - that they are going to revisit the way that backgrounds and specialties currently decompose into fiddly elements. Done well, this could produce something that is both light and lets colour matter.As I've said, the only diffrence I see here from 4e is the cataloguing.I don't see how a Next specialty is any different. A quick look at the Sharpshooter speciality shows me a "Sniper" and a "Called Shot" feat each of which has fiddly interactions with the attack rules (Sniper also looks extremely weak for a character with martial damage dice - a bit like the "Careful Shot" ranger at will in 4e - but perhaps I'm missing some other feature of the system that makes it worthwhile), a "Weapon Focus" feat that has fiddly interaction with the martial damage dice mechanic (it's 4e's brutal but only on a subset of my dice - so I need to roll dice of different colours, but the rules don't seem to mention that - whereas the MHRP and Burning Wheel rules do include that sort of helpful suggestion in their dice pool building rules text).I'm not seeing this massive departure from 4e's style - including apparent trap options like Sniper, which reads like it should be excellent for taking down the boss, assassination-style, but given that I can't add most of my damage bonuses actually looks useful only against minions that will drop on the weapon dice damage alone.</blockquote>

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