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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6291997" data-attributes="member: 87792">The GM is not the game.  The game is a mix of the GM, the players,  the rules being used, and the local social contract.  Few GMs are  system-independent - and I wouldn't want to be because it means that I'm  not using what the game brings.As for games with elegant rules  (I'm using my term just in case I've misunderstood), in my experience  their biggest plus is that they allow me to run game styles I simply  couldn't in other systems - and run games well I wouldn't do well.  They  are also games I find much more inspiring than rules heavy or even  orthodox rules light games.To use one example with my experience  of Feng Shui and D&D I thought I couldn't run gonzo games.  My  games just aren't.  Then I tried running Marvel Heroic with a gonzo  aesthetic.  It worked!  Stunting insanity and things going wrong at  relevant times in relevant ways.  On the downside there's no  game with elegant rules I've run yet I'd want to run for more than half a  dozen sessions.  But in those half dozen sessions, the games have  always been more intense, more inspiring, and had better roleplaying  than a non-elegant game could manage in a dozen.  (There will also be  fewer rules questions and looking things up in those half dozen sessions  than there would be in D&D or GURPS in three - even if the elegant  rules game is entirely new to the players).Elegant games aren't  just about simplifying rules (although they do, with all the advantages  that brings).  They are games that add spice, flavour, and tone and  invite everyone to join in.  (The blandest of them I know is Fate Core,  which is pretty trad in most ways - and even that is inviting everyone  to say what is important by means of aspects and showing the DM where  the targets to pitch to that the players want are).</blockquote>

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