Sorry - I think the point was missed...

[d20Dwarf]

I realize I know spit about game design.

This may be a first in the history of RPGs. I vote this post be enshrined in the RPG Hall of Fame.

 

[woodelf]

Snow, perhaps you also object to the title "Game Master." Would you feel more comfortable with "Game Custodian" or "Game Trustee" . . . ?

I ain't Snow, but: yes. I've always hated "Game Master", and dislike "Storyteller" just as much. "Storyguide" is my preferred nomenclature, because i think it's the most accurate term, and has the fewest misleading connotations.

 

[woodelf]

Doesn't the rules light v. heavy debate hold some weight when talking about introducing the game to younger audiences? Wasn't that the reason for having a "basic" and "advanced" game? Yes, I'm aware of the Arenson/Gygax reasons for splitting the two games dramatically, but I don't know that I would have stayed with the hobby if I picked up anything other than the Basic Set in 1983. I was about 10...that beautiful red box set was perfect for kids, and it was definitely "rules light".

Depends on what you mean by "younger". IME, middleschoolers and highschoolers will have the best first-time play experience with something fairly complex, but with a bit of hand-holding. Because, once they get past that first session or two, they're gonna want the complexity. [And this isn't just me talking: there's some research in psychology showing that kids of this age, especially males, are particularly drawn to "mastery", and the greater the complexity of the task, the greater the sense of accomplishment when it's mastered. ]

But for gradeschoolers, yes, maybe simpler would be better. Certainly, just throwing a set of D&D3.5E books at them, or FREd, isn't likely to be the right choice for most <10-yr-olds.

However, the other market for rules-lite, IME, is for older beginners. IME--which includes introducing dozens, if not hundreds, of complete newbies to RPGs--the middle- and highschoolers do best with something crunchy for them to sink their teeth into and to provide guidance, but the adult beginners do best with something rules-lite, to give maximal freedom. Also, IME most adults with jobs and kids and the whole nine yards simply aren't going to get over the hurdle of learning a complex game (RPG or otherwise) if they haven't already been bitten by the bug. If they don't already know they love RPGs (probably from playing them), the effort required to learn them can be a significant obstacle. Which makes perfect sense: if you've only got 5hrs/wk to devote to a new hobby, you'll want to minimize the effort and maximize the return, at least until you're sure you love it.

 

[woodelf]

I believe strong GM power is a key to the attraction of most rules lite game systems.

Maybe for you. I prefer rules-lite systems because they give the players more power, and/or because they are less work for the GM. And one way they can be less work for the GM is precisely by giving the GM less power--power is burdensome. The more power i have as the GM, the more responsibility i have, and the more work i have to do to run the game. The more power the players have, the less work i have to do, because the players are doing the work.

While there are rules-lite games that are effectively stripped-down games of the same model as D&D3E (C&C, Storyteller, maybe Cinematic Unisystem), there are plenty of other rules-lite games that espouse a distinctly different model, where the power taken away from the rules is given to the playgroup as a whole, or the non-GM players in particular, rather than to the GM. It's part of the same philosophy that leads to rules-lite in the first place: reduce the effort required to play the game. Increasing the GM's responsibility would be counter to this goal.

 

[woodelf]

My view is completely opposite; from my experience, Monte's mechanics usually aren't well-balanced at all, but his descriptive writing is superb. He has cool ideas for mechanics, but I find the execution... lacking.

To each their own. I'm really on the fence about Arcana Evolved right now because i love the rules--i own Arcana Unearthed--but have absolutely zero interest in Diamond Throne, and have seen very few bits of it that i'll likely steal. So i'm not sure if it's worth paying for all those pages of setting that i'll never use much of, just to get the nifty new mechanics. In general, i like his mechanics, when their on a topic i'm interested in, but the fluff often doesn't do anything for me. Oh well.

 

[woodelf]

What could the rules themselves do to make the DM's job easier? Or is this not something the rules can be bent to, but rather something dependent upon various DM aids such as pre-gen'd NPCs, complete tactics for monsters (as was attempted in the 3.5 version of the MM), or the use of a computer at the game table.

There is a conceptually-simple solution to this dilemma, and one that has been successfully implemented in a fair number of RPGs: PCs and NPCs don't use the same rules. That's all it takes to reduce the GM's burden. As for actually implementing it, the tricky part is making the NPC rules a simplification of the PC rules, rather than something completely different. But it could certainly be done. If monsters and other NPCs looked more like C&C chars, stat-wise (things like just two skill numbers, effectively, instead of individual skill scores), that'd be a good start, and the compatibility would still be there.

 

[woodelf]

I submit that any game where things are in writing is going to be more consistent than one in which they are not. As a player, that consistency helps fuel my impression of the gaming world as a real place, operating under normal rules (albeit different ones than the "real world"). The more rules-light a game is, the more it sacrifices by-the-book consistency for simplification. That's a choice they make ON PURPOSE by removing rules. As a player, I have more faith in my GM to be consistent if he has more of his world's rules written down, whether by the game or ones he writes himself.

Is the GM the ultimate arbiter of consistency? Sure. But don't players have the right to expect certain actions to be resolved the same way every time? As a GM, the onus of consistency is on me to the extent that it's not covered by the rules. That's an enormous burden to carry. Some piece of it is inevitable, but minimizing that burden should be the goal of a rule system. Some GMs shoulder that burden easily.

But any GM who doesn't realize that he's under that burden is really saying "So what if I'm inconsistent?" And that GM is not providing a consistent world for his players. It might still be fun, especially if the GM excels at other aspects of the roleplaying game experience, but it's not going to be AS fun.

Let me provide a counter-example: i guarantee you that i am noticably less consistent when running Arcana Unearthed than i am running Over the Edge -- or even Werewolf: the Apocalypse. Heck, i was more consistent when running AD&D2 (no Players' Option). In all cases, precisely because there are more rules written down. See, give me a game that is within my capacity to memorize the rules, and i will quite consistently apply them. Even if that requires a fair bit of fiat on my part. But, give me rules that exceed my capacity--such as the vast majority of D20 System games--and i will make all sorts of sloppy rulings. Sometimes i'll remember the official rule and use it; sometimes i won't. Sometimes i'll decide to look it up when i can't remember, and sometimes i won't. Sometimes i'll find it quickly enough, and sometimes i'll just wing it when i don't find it right away. Sometimes my ad hoc rulings will be consistent with the official rule, and sometimes they won't be. And since a complex ruleset like D&D3E is beyond my ability to truly digest (apparently), i've not been able to suss out the underlying principles, making my extrapolations less likely to be inconsistent, which is much of the problem. [either that, or it's just plain inconsistent itself. But giving it the benefit of the doubt, i haven't been able to figure out why some attack actions have one modifier, and others another --at least not in all cases--and why some things are skills and others class abilities and others feats, and so on.]

I think the problem is you're conflating simplicity with inconsistency. A game can be the former without being the latter. It's only when you ask a game to provide more detail than it's designed to provide that you run into consistency problems [assuming, of course, that the rules are consistent on their own level, of course].

[warning, example by analogy ahead]
Is Risk a lousy game because it doesn't simulate war and conquest accurately? Are those who like Risk just fooling themselves into thinking it's lighter than Axis & Allies? Or could it be that, by aiming for different goals, it is both more than adequate for those goals, and actually much lighter and faster in play?

----
Oh, one other really significant point (at least in my littel brain) comes up: what RPGs *are* we talking about? Because the study was apparently conducted in the late '90s, and most of the truly rules-lite RPGs i'm aware of--those that behave like it's a feature, not a bug they need to compensate for--weren't in wide circulation, or even available, at that point. The only two i can think of for certain are OtE and Amber DRP. Feng Shui is really in the middle ground--the basic mechanic may be pretty simple, but it's all but buried in special powers. Fudge wasn't that well-known, though it is usually lite--but that depends on the implementation. Most of the truly rules-lite games i can think of have appeared, or at least become known, in the last 6 years.

 

[woodelf]

I disagree. It's not an illusion. Obviously the GM has absolute power during the game, but in a game that covers more situations with stated guidelines (and that's how I see most of the "complex" 3e rules - elaborate guidelines that are intended to make the game more consistent), the players can hold their DM accountable for his squidgy rulings in those areas. If he makes no squidgy rulings, all is well. If he does, he can either a) correct things so that he makes fewer of them in the future, or b) choose to keep making squidgy rulings which will eventually cost him players.

In a rules-light game, that element of accountability is utterly absent. Player's choices are entirely dependent on what the GM chooses to allow, unless it's covered by the rules. That's an enormous distinction. If the GM chooses to arbitrarily change the rules and limit a player's choices, that's his prerogative, but then he's running a rules-heavy game as a rules-light one. But at least the player has some idea of the consequences of his actions.

I think your lack of experience with rules-lite RPGs is showing. Because there are plenty of RPGs out there that are both rules-lite, and give the GM *less* power than in a game like, say Fading Suns. They do this by giving the rest of the players *more* power than most other RPGs--in fact, i'll go out on a limb and say that some of them give the players more power than it is *possible* for the players to have in a high-crunch game (except by explicitly voiding much of the crunch).

I think this goes right back to the "what is rules-lite" question that this thread (and the previous one) has been dancing around. There are at least three sorts of rules-lite games (that is, games with fewer rules):

• 1: those that come at the RPG experience from a similar place to, say, D&D3E or GURPS, but paint everything in broader strokes, with less detail. These games sound like what most people here (you and Ryan Dancey, in particular) are talking about.
• 2: those that come at the RPG experience from the same place as, say, D&d3E or GURPS, but simply fail to fill in the details, expecting the playgroup to do so. These are the games that are most prone to frustrating due to lack of detail or inconsistency.
• 3: those that come at teh RPG experience from a very different place than, say, D&D3E or GURPS. They therefore have very different goals, and might fulfill all of them as well as or better than GURPS fulfills its, despite having many fewer rules.

This is compounded by the fact that different people want different things out of their RPGs. The most obvious is that some want detailed tactical simulations, while some specifically want to avoid them.

Now, if you want the same play experience as D&D3E, but using the C&C rules, of course you're going to find the rules lacking. And the GM is going to have to fill in all the details, quite possibly inconsistently. But if you only want the level of detail that the C&C rules provide, then it doesn't matter that more detail isn't there. C&C is no more broken for not having detailed skill rules than D&D is for not having detailed injury and medicine rules.

You say that a rules-lite game is dependent on the GM, except where the rules adjudicate. First, that's true of all RPGs. I think what you're really complaining about isn't simpler rules--they can conceivably cover all the same topics, just with less depth/detail--but rules that are less-detailed than the playgroup wants them. Frex, i wish D&D3E had a combat system (perhaps as an alternate rule) that could resolve an entire combat in one roll [so that i could do an unimportant combat quickly, but without resorting to fiat], and a skill system that could break down most tasks, especially social interactions, into multiple rolls and give multi-axis results. So, applying your standards, D&D3E is too 'rules-lite' in the skill/social area (for my tastes).

Second, and this gets back to my break-down of rules-lite RPG types above, the implication you're making is that all rules-lite games play just like a D&D3E game, but with half the rules missing. This couldn't be further from the truth. Again, if i want a D&d3E-like play experience, and attempt to achieve it using C&C, i'm going to be frustrated. However, if i want a C&C-like play experience, no disappointment will be found. More importantly, it's a three-way division of power, between GM, other players, and ruleset. Even if the power were simply additive, simple math would tell you that it's possible to decrease the power the ruleset holds without increasing the power the GM holds--simply by increasing the power the players hold. And lots of rules-lite games go that route. In some, you can barely tell the difference in power between the gM and the other players--the latter have *way* more power than in D&D3E.

Let me give a simple hypothetical example: you talk about wanting to be able to predict the consequences of your actions in-game. One way to do that is the D&D3E way: a list of actions and consequences. But there are other, rules-lite, ways of providing both options and player knowledge--it is not necessary to resort to putting all that into the GM's hands. Frex, a single rule of "any significant advantage gives you a +2" would cover all of the options D&D3e gives you, would not put any more judgement into the GM's hands, and would, indeed, provide more options than D&D3E (which is limited to the combat options detailed, if you refuse to allow GM fiat).

"ah," you object, "but the GM has to adjudicate 'significant'." No, she doesn't. The rules can easily be designed and written to make it abundantly clear that the person declaring the advantage gets to decide if it's significant. Or the rules could be designed to give others the power to challenge the declaration, but only within the rules themselves (such as Baron Munchausen's bidding mechanic).

Also, IME, complex rulesets never seem to actually address the things i need when running a game, so they often don't decrease my GMing workload appreciably, anyway. frex, the current game is Arcana Uneathed. Here are the situations, just from the last session, that i could find no rules answer for and had to improvise:

• a skill for noticing a subtle clue hidden in a mural
• what skill to invent a code and write something in it?
• balance is the skill for not loosing your footing on slippery ground; what's the skill for tricky acrobatic flying?
• what roll to determine whether a poison that has effected you was inhaled or contact?
• determining whether a scent that someone definitely smells is recognizable?
• what do you do about knowledges that don't fall under any of the knowledge skills? do you allow people to fall back to straight Int rolls? Isn't that unfairly penalizing someone for not taking a knowledge that wasn't available to be taken? no roll allowed? that's silly. roll off an inappropriate knowledge? not very satisfactory.

Number of ability-type checks that the game scenario clearly called for, and which had an obvious skill or other stat (saving throw, attack roll, etc.), during that same session? about a dozen (it was a slow-moving, mostly-RPing, session). IOW, roughly one in every three things that seemed like they should be up to character skill and/or chance during the session didn't give me a solid rules basis to go on, and thus required some degree of GM fiat. If i'd been using a game system that didn't have skills, or saves, or BAB, just everything based on the 6 core attributes, i wouldn't have had a problem--every one of those falls quite clearly under one of those 6.

 

[Gentlegamer]

I think your lack of experience with rules-lite RPGs is showing. Because there are plenty of RPGs out there that are both rules-lite, and give the GM *less* power than in a game like, say Fading Suns. They do this by giving the rest of the players *more* power than most other RPGs--in fact, i'll go out on a limb and say that some of them give the players more power than it is *possible* for the players to have in a high-crunch game (except by explicitly voiding much of the crunch).

Would Torg qualify? I never played it, but I think the card system let players force the GM into all kinds of rules and plots.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

My only problem was the choice of rather combative words:

"Essentially, all I see here is DMs who are so full of themselves that they believe they never make mistakes or that their players are too dumb to notice the mistakes."

You are right, they were the wrong choice of words. I was a little too worked up when I posted that message and should have calmed down first. It just frustrated me because of my past experiences with DMs. I am sorry for saying them. They were not aimed at you at all.

When I saw a couple of people post things similar to "I've never once had a problem with the players not accepting a rule I made up. They all trust me, so if I told them they needed to roll a 40 on their climb check to walk up a set of ordinary stairs no one would question it in the slightest."

To me, that's just wrong. All people make mistakes. All rules you come up with are not going to work for all people in your group. The point I was making is that as a group, we've always found it easier to accept some third party's rules on how to do something. (I think mainly because there was no one around to blame for the rules being stupid. If I made them up, all my players would feel that all they have to do is make the right arguement to me and the rule would go away)

I might be able to make up a good rule on the fly, I might not. I've just had too many experiences where a DM made up a rule on the fly that ruined the entire session for me because of how dumb it was. The DM had no idea whatsoever, though. He was convinced he knew everything so obviously his rule was the best one. I talked to the players after the game, they all felt the same way, but they told me that they had gotten used to the DM doing that and in order to have fun you just had to put it behind you.