No More Massive Tomes of Rules

[niklinna]

You're missing a big, recurring pushback in this roundup, which is related to your sense that a game needs an essentially unlimited amount of ultra-specific rules that cover every single possible situation, or else it's not a full game. By that logic why stop at your 3000-page mark? A proper RPG should never end, just keep adding more and more rules for quickly opening and closing a butterfly knife, calculating the wind speeds and humidity levels that will snuff various kinds of torches, whole taxonomies of weapons and vehicles and armor that someone made a single prototype of but never field-tested. Get that page count to 30,000 or 300,000, or more, till you've settled the psi needed to squeeze a trigger and the xp needed to increase your finger strength not just for your dominant hand, but your off-hand, and possibly that third hand covered in roughly 500 pages of mechanics about gaining and managing mutations.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. "Adding more and more rules" implies that you can begin play before the rules are complete. Total non-starter, my dude. If you come up with rules as they're needed, that's improv, and we are not having that.

 

[Faolyn]

Related to doing the 5E SRD in 100 pages: I think they intentionally crippled the SRD PDF so it is a giant PITA to get the text out. I was going to do an example with the Dwarf race entry and
every
word
was
on
its
own
line
after
cut
and
paste

If you use Word, find & replace find & replace control-p (or control-v, depending on if those are paragraph breaks or line breaks) to a space, it turns it into a paragraph. I have a macro set up for that to make it easy for me when I come across things like that.

 

[aramis erak]

Sure. I don't think lumping D&D and the other games I was thinking of together is particularly useful, but if you want to accuse me of thinking in a relatively trad paradigm in these posts I'll plead guilty. However I'll disagree that Cortex+ is going to automatically answer the question if its not designed upfront specifically to do it; there's nothing about Cortex that automatically avoids the same kind of failure states most other games tend to with stealth.

In the Cortex Plus/Prime paradigm, there are no difficulty modifiers.
it's all opposed rolls, based upon already established ratings, and a very limited set, at that.
The exact details of building a pool vary across different CP/P games... but I'll give two examples:
MHRP: One distinction (d4 hinder or d8 help), Affiliation (d6 d8 or d10 by character), One power from each power group the character has (from 1d6 to 1d12 for the power, and 1 to 3 groups, usually 1), one Expertise (aka skill, d6/d8/d10/d12), one signature asset (if you have one, d6 or d8), one temporary asset for the character (d6), one for the scene (d4-d12 if applicable), one opposition damage complication.
Firefly: One distinction (as above), one attribute (d6-d10), one skill (1d4 =unskilled, to 1d12), one specialization of that skill (if applicable, 1d6), one signature asset (1d6 or 1d8, if applicable), one temporary asset (d6, usually), one scene asset (if any, at it's rating d4 to d12), one opponent complication (if any and relevant, d4 to d12)...
Assemble to the pool, roll it, set aside the 1's, pick 2 of the rest for the success calculation, and one of the non-1's for the effect (which is a complication or asset of the same nuber of sides as the effect die). 1's can be converted to plot points and

Fate, likewise, it's all either opponent's skill, or how hard should it be for joe average... and whether you can apply aspects. As written, no adjustments for situation unless they've been codified into assets. And doing so requires a skill roll or a fate point, or both...

2d20 can be run in this mode, too... but it's not the default mode for most 2d20 games.

The fundamentals of many games of that style are highly mechanical but not subject to a lot of rule searching; for the GM's calls on their character's labels on aspects/assets or Powers, it's simple enough to have a hand signal of disagreement when the dice are pushed forward during the narration. (and for Cortex, I don't have players FTF announce the dice, just narrate and point to the level as the put the die into a dice cup or onto the character sheet. (On the sheet works GREAT for Marvel Heroic... since I blow the sheet up from trade (6×9 inch) to letter (8.5×11 inch)...)

And then, there are the AWE/PBTA, where most don't have difficulties at all - it's roll and add skill, and check on the universal range...

Keep in mind also, I'm prone to old school as a minis wargame with interludes; so for me, these games do force me out of that mode, and out of the simulationism I used to enjoy.

 

[Thomas Shey]

In the Cortex Plus/Prime paradigm, there are no difficulty modifiers.
it's all opposed rolls, based upon already established ratings, and a very limited set, at that.

An opposed roll is a difficulty modifier with dice. I'm quite aware of how Cortex works; I ran whole campaign of it.

 

[Retros_x]

Do you know what a b-tree search is?

Because it's pretty obvious to me how you would keep subsystems from taking up mental space until they were needed. The idea that there exists a supplement that lists a bunch of monsters, or a supplement that is a mass combat extension of the rules, or a supplement that is nothing more than a giant well described price list would somehow be this huge burden on you as a GM and would ruin your fun strikes me as both bizarre and short sighted.

The idea that 100 page rules would be more cumbersome than 1000 page rules is bizarre to me. No matter the searching algorithm, 100 will always be less than 1000 - but the idea to suggest a search algorithm at all to handle tabletop rules is so freaking hilarious to me, I had to comment about it.

Its quite the simple concept: many DM don't like to flip through long lists or tables during play or want to have complicated procedures to resolve a situation. You definitely don't NEED those. You could theoretically simulate combat in a hyperrealistic matter OR you can resolve combat with a single role. None of these is objectively better, what you truly need depends completely on your and your groups requirements. That is the objective truth - now we can talk about opinions if we prefer simple, abstract systems or complex systems full of specific rules and subsystems for every situation. But its all opinion based on personal preference, no right or wrong here IMO.

 

[Celebrim]

The idea that 100 page rules would be more cumbersome than 1000 page rules is bizarre to me. No matter the searching algorithm, 100 will always be less than 1000 - but the idea to suggest a search algorithm at all to handle tabletop rules is so freaking hilarious to me, I had to comment about it.

Every modern rulebook contains a b-tree search in it in the form of a table of contents. Likewise, many of them also have an index in the back to perform the same function. The depth of a search doesn't necessarily increase meaningfully between 100 pages and 1000 pages.

Its quite the simple concept: many DM don't like to flip through long lists or tables during play or want to have complicated procedures to resolve a situation.

Yes, what is your point?

You definitely don't NEED those. You could theoretically simulate combat in a hyperrealistic matter OR you can resolve combat with a single role. None of these is objectively better, what you truly need depends completely on your and your groups requirements. That is the objective truth - now we can talk about opinions if we prefer simple, abstract systems or complex systems full of specific rules and subsystems for every situation. But its all opinion based on personal preference, no right or wrong here IMO.

You are so far from understanding what I'm talking about that I don't really know where to begin.

Why do you think we have rules at all? What purpose do you think they serve? I mean applying your same argument in the exact way you applying it, we could equally argue that there is no objective reason to have rules at all or no reason to have 100 pages of rules when you could have just 10 pages.

Moreover, this is going to blow you mind, but there is no objective reason that 1000 pages of rules need be more complex than 10 pages of rules. I can provide examples.

See in your head you are imagining that if 1000 pages of rules exist that you are continually referencing them for every situation that arises in the game, and that's simply not true.

I'll go one further that will blow your mind even more. It is congruent with my position that every rule in a system should exist to make the game easier to run for the GM and if the rule doesn't make the game easier to run, then it's a bad rule and should be removed.

You literally don't understand this topic enough to be critiquing my position. Perhaps you would be better off starting with a few questions.

 

[Retros_x]

Every modern rulebook contains a b-tree search in it in the form of a table of contents. Likewise, many of them also have an index in the back to perform the same function.

This is the first time I experience the Dunning-Kruger-effect in a direct interaction. Do you actually think you blew anybodys mind after trying to suggest a table of contents is a b-tree search?

The depth of a search doesn't necessarily increase meaningfully between 100 pages and 1000 pages.

But it never decreases. 100 pages is always easier to navigate than 1000 pages. Thats another objective fact for you, there are no algorithms with a negative time complexity.

Yes, what is your point?

You didn't seem to understand in previous comments that some DMs prefer shorter ruleworks - so my point was to show you why.

Why do you think we have rules at all? What purpose do you think they serve? I mean applying your same argument in the exact way you applying it, we could equally argue that there is no objective reason to have rules at all or no reason to have 100 pages of rules when you could have just 10 pages.

Thats your fallacy. I did argue, as others in this thread, that the granularity of rules is a spectrum and there is no objectively correct amount of rules. There is no NEED for more rules. There is also no NEED for less rules (but thats not what you argued). If 10 pages of rules or 10k pages of rule work better for you is -again - no objective matter, but a matter of requirements that you and your table have.

but there is no objective reason that 1000 pages of rules need be more complex than 10 pages of rules. I can provide examples.

I didn't say that. But the probability of a rules framework with 1000 pages being equally complex than a framework with 10 pages is close to zero and just a fun theoretical scenario to fantasize about. But in terms of time complexity of navigating through rules and find the correct applicable one - yes 1000 pages are always more complex to parse, if just a tiny bit one, depending on the search algorithm you apply. But I doubt that DMs at the table implement search algorithms in their mind, so another fun theoretical scenario.

See in your head you are imagining that if 1000 pages of rules exist that you are continually referencing them for every situation that arises in the game, and that's simply not true.

No of course not. But I played games with shorter rules and games with longer rules and surprise, surprise I have shorter lookups on shorter rules. So both theory (as shown above) and my own experience show that you actually have more lookup time on bigger rule frameworks - no surprising to anyone on earth except you who appearently desperately wants to die on a very lonesome hill.

It is congruent with my position that every rule in a system should exist to make the game easier to run for the GM and if the rule doesn't make the game easier to run, then it's a bad rule and should be removed.

In my definition of "easier to run", this sentence supports my opinion that shorter rule frameworks are better - cause they are easier to run. Which shows again that this is not a factual matter, but an opinion. Because we probably have both different metrics of what it means to make a game easier to run.


---------------------------------
Off-Topic:

You are so far from understanding what I'm talking about that I don't really know where to begin.

Moreover, this is going to blow you mind,

I'll go one further that will blow your mind even more.

You literally don't understand this topic enough to be critiquing my position.

what is with you and that attitude? Do you actually think you are so smart? I left reddit discussions because I was annoyed by the ones who think that their opinions are facts and tried to WIN arguments by throwing ad hominems around and I don't feel good to read such patronizing takes on enworld.

Perhaps you would be better off starting with a few questions.

I have indeed a lot of questions in my mind, but they are not about the topic at all - so I refrain asking them.

 

[Shardstone]

I want rules cuz I want to play a fun game. If I just wanted to rp, I would go do forum rp.

 

[Maggan]

I want rules cuz I want to play a fun game. If I just wanted to rp, I would go do forum rp.

Yeah, that's the stance of everyone in this thread, there has to be rules to make it a role-playing game. But one of the things discussed is how many rules are needed. 100 pages? 1000 pages? 3000 pages?

And it all boils down to personal preference.

 

[Shardstone]

Yeah, that's the stance of everyone in this thread, there has to be rules to make it a role-playing game. But one of the things discussed is how many rules are needed. 100 pages? 1000 pages? 3000 pages?

And it all boils down to personal preference.

No need to be coy, friend.