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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Croesus" data-source="post: 5749364" data-attributes="member: 35019">Unfortunately, some systems (3.x, I'm looking at you) deal with these hundreds of judgement calls by having hundreds of rules. So instead of bogging down your game with judgement calls, the rules bog down your game with little, conditional, rarely used rules that no one can remember when the situation comes up. Quick, what are the rules for breaking items? What types of attacks do no damage to items? What types of attacks do less/more damage against items? How many points of damage can a mace take when trying to sunder it? Sometimes a judgement call is so much easier...Again, if eliminating the "allowances and permissions" requires memorizing (or looking up during play) dozens or hundreds of rules, what have you gained?Agreed. Though to my mind, the whole point is to design the game in such a way that it doesn't require 400 pages of rules to play. I'm assuming you're not suggesting a "rule for every occasion". But when designing the rules, there has to be a guiding principal for the design. Monte seems to be suggesting that no rules set can be 100% complete, so better to decide ahead of time which situations work better with fixed rules, and which situations work better in the hands of the GM, then design the system accordingly. Finding the proper balance isn't easy, and reasonable people will disagree on where the line should be, but at least he's showing that the designers understand the importance of getting it right.One last point - this entire discussion seems to tie directly to the earlier article on system mastery. While I understand that many players enjoy digging into a system and discovering every nuance, many of us simply no longer have that kind of time. Having a system that doesn't require so much effort to learn and - more importantly - actually use is a high priority, at least to me. I'll gladly surrender some control to the GM, if it allows me to focus on the game, as opposed to the rules.</blockquote>

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