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<blockquote data-quote="Korgoth" data-source="post: 4944100" data-attributes="member: 49613">I think the &quot;species&quot; of a system is less important than its &quot;genus&quot;, if you'll permit the expression. Generically, a rules-lite game differs from a rules-heavy game in the kind of play experience it delivers, and how much the particular style of the Ref influences that experience.Also, a dice-heavy system differs from a dice-lite system in a similar regard. This is an underappreciated distinction: does everything that you do get resolved by a roll, or are the decisions that you make more important in themselves? A classic example is the &quot;Search roll&quot;: is it more important that you chose to spend time/resources looking somewhere, or that you rolled high when you did so? If the focus of the game is on the decision, and rewards a good decision and/or punishes a bad decision, then it's probably dice-lite. If the game instead rewards only high rolls and punishes only low rolls (or the equivalent), then it's dice-heavy.Another practical example of the latter dichotomy: social interactions. In dice-heavy games, I've actually seen people say things like &quot;I say something persuasive&quot; and chuck a D20. That's because it doesn't matter (or at least only matters about 10%) if you actually say anything reasonable... what matters is if you roll high plus your Talk skill. That delivers an entirely different play experience from a dice-lite game in which whether you influenced the NPC depends on what you actually said. In a dice-heavy game, you may never get to hear any clever role play; in a dice-lite game, a painful introvert cannot play the party's face man.&nbsp;The specifics of a system often don't matter too much... but the underlying philosophy of a system matters a great deal.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Korgoth, post: 4944100, member: 49613"] I think the "species" of a system is less important than its "genus", if you'll permit the expression. Generically, a rules-lite game differs from a rules-heavy game in the kind of play experience it delivers, and how much the particular style of the Ref influences that experience. Also, a dice-heavy system differs from a dice-lite system in a similar regard. This is an underappreciated distinction: does everything that you do get resolved by a roll, or are the decisions that you make more important in themselves? A classic example is the "Search roll": is it more important that you chose to spend time/resources looking somewhere, or that you rolled high when you did so? If the focus of the game is on the decision, and rewards a good decision and/or punishes a bad decision, then it's probably dice-lite. If the game instead rewards only high rolls and punishes only low rolls (or the equivalent), then it's dice-heavy. Another practical example of the latter dichotomy: social interactions. In dice-heavy games, I've actually seen people say things like "I say something persuasive" and chuck a D20. That's because it doesn't matter (or at least only matters about 10%) if you actually say anything reasonable... what matters is if you roll high plus your Talk skill. That delivers an entirely different play experience from a dice-lite game in which whether you influenced the NPC depends on what you actually said. In a dice-heavy game, you may never get to hear any clever role play; in a dice-lite game, a painful introvert cannot play the party's face man. The specifics of a system often don't matter too much... but the underlying philosophy of a system matters a great deal. [/QUOTE]

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