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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6289727" data-attributes="member: 85870">I completely agree. To me, when someone pushes "rules lite" as a key "feature" of a rules system, it's nearly always a turn-off. In my experience, most of the "rules lite" stuff I see bandied about is generally little more than a core resolution mechanic wrapped in minimal character advancement packaging. For fans of these kinds of systems, I'm sure they're fantastic, the point of using a system like this is when you're a group that's willing to hand over dramatic amounts of power to the GM. If your group trusts the GM, then "rules lite" is probably a great experience. For me, I simply want more from my systems than freedom to improvise. This I also agree with, though to be honest, I'm more about a system achieving its aims satisfactorily than being attached to any arbitrary distinction of "rules lite" or "rules heavy."The advantage of "rules heavy" is that when done well, having structured rules actually makes it easier at times to produce satisfying play. When the rules can handle multiple variations of similar situations, it becomes easy to adjudicate on the fly. You have enough core guidance from the rules, but can change applicability.On the whole I tend to think I should prefer a "heavier" system to a lighter one . . . but to be honest, none of the "heavier" systems I've looked into held enough appeal in trying to actually learn and run the system. I'm pretty much DONE with D&D, probably almost permanently; GURPS has just way too many system-specific niggles that bug me to ever use it; from what I understand HERO is close enough to GURPS that it's probably in the same boat. To be honest I've never really given the BRP / d100 systems, a la Runequest, a fair shake, but I don't necessarily want "ultra-realistic" and "gritty" so much as I want consistency and transferable applicability. As @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=26651" target="_blank">amerigoV</a> mentioned, Savage Worlds is that system for me currently. It does exactly what I want my system to do, with enough player options to remain satisfying for long term play, while maintaining a consistent, cross-genre, situationally-applicable elegance that make on-the-fly adjudication a breeze. That said, it's not my One True System. My One True System would ultimately use the die-step mechanics of Savage Worlds crossed with a bell-curve probability distribution, and would definitely NOT use the Savage Worlds shaken / wound / soak mechanic. But Savage Worlds does everything else that I'm looking for so well that it's easy to overlook those aspects, especially when compared to the alternatives.Your Point #5 above is increasingly a big deal to me. One of the biggest things I discovered after hopping off the "WotC Brand of D&D" was just how incoherent it can be at times. After watching Crafty Games rip the 3.x engine apart, then put it back together into something dramatically more consistent and elegant with Fantasy Craft, I realized that "coherence" is something that's hard to fully pin down, but remarkably tangible when present in rules presentation. Savage Worlds also happens to have this sense of "coherence," or "elegance" in Caterpillar-tractor-sized spades. At this point, as much as I dislike most of GURPS' general gameplay "tropes," I'd still probably rather GM it than 3.x or Pathfinder now, because it's at least coherent in its approach (though I'd infinitely rather GM SW, FC, One Ring, or Fate instead).</blockquote>

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