Sorry - I think the point was missed...

[Akrasia]

...
I can't be any clearer than the following two statements.

As a player, I like to believe my decisions and choices (both while playing AND during character creation) have relevance to the game's outcome. If I make one choice, A will happen, but if I make another choice, instead B will happen. Anything that takes away from that element does not necessarily help to create the game I want to play. ...

In the campaign that we played together, the most significant things that the PCs did that altered the course of the campaign had *nothing* to do with the game's rules.

*Nothing.*

Rather, the PCs had, roughly, three possible courses of action over the course of the campaign. They could have: (a.) pursued the trail of the 'Cult' that they discovered; (b.) explore the ruins of the Amber Savants; and (c.) pursue their 'personal quests'.

I had prepared the campaign to cover all three possibilities. The PCs chose to focus on (a.), and I responded to that choice in subsequent sessions.

I thought there were *plenty* of interesting options in our campaign (or at least I tried to make sure there was). Moreover, the PCs determined the outcome of the campaign.

Nothing was 'predetermined' by me as GM. None of the campaign's most significant options had to do with the 'rules'.

...
How is this complicated? You can't eliminate a level of detail from the rules and then claim it somehow magically exists. It's ridiculous.

I don't know what this means, or to whom you are replying.

...
That's hyperbole. I'm perfectly comfortable with the GM coming up with homebrew settings and creating adventures. I just don't want their outcome and path pre-determined before I start playing.

Yes, and not wanting "outcome and path pre-determined" has *nothing* to do with the rules -- at least IME as a GM.

Like I just stated above, in our campaign the outcome was *not* pre-determined. Its outcome was determined by the *decisions* of the PCs. This would have been the case had we been using GURPS, C&C, True20, or whatever, instead of 3e.

...
I said "entirely of the GM's imagination." In other words, if the sole point of my character is to be part of an overarching plot arc that the GM has predetermined, then it's pointless to play. The players should be a part of creating game world in collaboration with the GM.

*Nothing* in rules light/medium games prevent this kind of collaboration. In fact, IME, rules light/medium games *encourage* this kind of collaboration.

...
The only level at which this cropped up in our gameplay was that you were the one writing the character backgrounds. I grant you did try to take our ideas into account, but the details of the character were mostly fleshed out by you. Now, I know you had your reasons, but I would have liked it if the process could have been more collaborative.

You're misremembering what happened. I went to great pains to emphasize that I would *rewrite* the biographies (in part or in whole) if you wished.

Steve wanted to add a whole new dimension to his bio -- the 'one horn helmet' thing. I added it.

And Brian in fact wrote the rough draft of his bio -- I revised it slightly to fit into the campaign setting.

The fact that you *chose* not to revise or alter the draft that I gave you does not mean that you did not have the option. Others did exercise that option.

...
A gaming book with fewer rules is a simpler, but, in my opinion, less complete game.

I disagee. It is simply a more *general* game.

Also, it does not follow that rules light/medium games *necessarily* mean that players have less options. I think you are unfairly generalizing on the basis of C&C alone here. You really should take a look at True20, for example. (It is close to d20, so it should be easy to grasp.)

...
That also doesn't make it "easy to play." Nothing truer has ever been said than "simple does not mean easy."

IME rule lights/medium games are both easier and funner to GM. They certainly have a *faster* pace. (Although I have some experience as a GM -- newbies may not feel as comfortable with such games.)

...
As I said earlier, I wanted to like C&C...

My recollection is quite different. I remember you being the one player *most* opposed to trying C&C. (Actually, you were the *only* player opposed to C&C.)

...
All of this is totally off Ryan's original point that, based on his observations, and in contradiction to his OWN anecdotal experiences, rules-light games did not actually PLAY any faster. You can scream that it doesn't match your experiences until you're blue in the face, but until someone produces an observational study with different data, I'm going to accept that Ryan is accurately reporting his findings. If that was the case and it doesn't match the body of anecdotal experience, then someyhing is screwy and should be investigated.

I am sure Ryan is "accurately reporting his findings". That doesn't change the fact that I think his findings are bunk. For one thing, he never specified what he meant by a 'rules light' game. In fact, nothing about the games used in the study have been mentioned. Moreover, in his later comments, he noted that the problems he observed primarily had to do with gamers who did *not* normally game together. That caveat alone renders his study inapplicable to most gaming groups.

More generally, I do not doubt that gamers in the grip of a certain paradigm might find rules light/medium games difficult to play. Big deal. Those aren't the gamers I generally play with (nor, I would guess, the majority of other gamers who prefer rules light/medium games).

 

[Gentlegamer]

Fudge is actually a very bad case in point. Fudge is not a game, it is a toolbox for making a game. In this regard, it's pretty unique. Nevertheless, this "lot of work from the GM before it can be run" is completely irrelevant for this discussion. Here only matters, how the game plays after it's ready. And a Fudge game can be rules-light or rules-medium, depending on what the creator of the actual game cobbled together. Bad example .

To a lesser extent, both GURPS and HERO are also toolkits for making your own game. I like both, but there is a lot of pre-campaign work to be done with those systems.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Reading these threads is making me want to try HeroQuest and Warhammer, by the way. Perhaps I can add them to my "rules lite" games along with Lejendary Adventure.

 

[Turjan]

To a lesser extent, both GURPS and HERO are also toolkits for making your own game. I like both, but there is a lot of pre-campaign work to be done with those systems.

By the way, on a convention I've seen a completely hilarious GURPS game that went over several days. The rules that were used did not exceed the very basics of the mechanics. In a certain sense, that was a very rules-light game, with GURPS .

Have fun with WHFRP and HeroQuest .

 

[Akrasia]

In the campaign that we played together, the most significant things that the PCs did that altered the course of the campaign had *nothing* to do with the game's rules.
....

I may have overstated this, since it may have been the case that you created your character based on your expectations given the 3e rules. And once your character had been created, that may have influenced the subsequent progress of the campaign.

I would like to think that I would have been willing to accommodate any reasonable 'character concept' in our campaign, irrespective of the system used (so long as that concept was compatible with the campaign setting, of course). But I don't deny that *your* character concept might have been based on, or inspired by, the 3e rules.

Beyond that, though, I have a hard time seeing how the 3e rules by themselves gave you 'more options' in determining how the campaign progressed, since all the 'big issues' were resolved by the decisions of the PCs, and players figuring things out, than game mechanics.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

If you simply don't understand a certain kind of game, why do you persist in commenting on (and criticizing) it?
:\

Because I seek to understand it, and by discussing it I hope to gain that understanding. I honestly thought this discussion was the difference between:

I move 30 feet, drawing my weapon and I attack, since he is flanked, I get plus +2 to hit.

vs

I make a physical roll of 12, which beats it by 5. He beats his by 4? I win the battle, defeating the enemy.

Which, is what I know of the difference between rules light RPGs and rules heavy. Now, since it was then told to me that there be a different definition of rules light that I had never heard before, I'm now trying to understand it.

My question is, how do these forms of rules light that you are referring to working? Is it different because the players describe their actions however they want regardless of the rolls and perhaps even have power over NPCs or other players by using narrative or "drama points" or something similar? Is it empowering because using that example of the physical roll above you could describe your character as tumbling out a window, making an impossible leap and stabbing the enemy amazingly right through the heart and it makes no difference other than you got to do "cool stuff"?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

It doesn't matter. The point is, due to no fault of the rules (other than following them--and, even then, it was as much how we got to the point where the rules were even used that was the problem), we had a horrible clash of assumptions that basically ruined the game for me. And the assumption clash was so bad--we so totally missed each others' points--that even after the fact another of the players had to explain it to him.

Hmm, I think this helps me to understand a bit, even if I can't understand your motivations.

I think it's because I don't see playing an RPG as a large excersize in creating a grand story. I see it as playing a character in a make believe world. I might play a meaningless peasant who doesn't do anything useful or a hero who goes out in a blaze of glory 5 minutes. To me, it's about the challenge of playing that character and letting fate unravel for him.

When I read your character description, it sounds like I would have interpretted it as "I am creating a character for the express purpose of killing the BBEG" and I would have allowed you to kill him if I gave you the chance.

See, my big problem with understanding the situation is that I don't understand creating a character whose goals you didn't want to be accomplished. To me, the game is about a bunch of heroes fighting against evil. They try their best, sometimes they win, sometimes they lose. Sometimes it is a lot easier than expected. Still, there are other evils to fight and other adventures to go on. So, the PCs go on them because they are heroes and are dedicated to defeating evil in whatever shape it make take.

I could see possibility in your character even beyond what happened. Was someone else in control of this BBEG? Was he just a servant? Is there someone who could take over his legacy? Would someone try to bring him back that needed to be stopped? The Revanant would not rest until ALL his work was done. Maybe he just would not rest while there were others out there who would do the same things as the BBEG. It's a matter of working the game into your character as much as you work your character into the game. The game has to flow both ways.

Still, in the case of this character, I think he is better suited as an NPC or a character in a novel than a PC. PCs have to be generic enough to be able to accept multiple plot hooks and reasons for adventure as I discovered in a similar situation:

I was playing a 3rd Ed game. I was playing a human fighter who escaped 10 years of Mind Flayer slavery and not even having his own personality as he was a thralled bodyguard to one. He became an awfully cynical, self serving bastard. Still, he wanted to live his own life without interference from anyone else. He was willing to do nearly anything for money, however as his moral code was a little skewed.

Either way, I was going to play him as not knowing anything about human interactions as the last time he'd had them was when he was 8 years old. So, he was not polite, no one liked him, but he was strong and the party needed muscle. Then, the DM had us in town when a siege of the town happened by an overwhelming force. We happened to be in the palace because we had managed to find an item of extreme value to the royal family and had returned it (despite my character protesting to keep it for ourselves). The entire royal family was killed without us being able to do anything about it, except the princess. We managed to escape with her and the entire campaign seemed to be dodging patrols of this conquering country (who now had made similar assaults on nearly every city in the country).

So, at any rate, my character could care less who was ruling the country he happened to be staying in at the time. He didn't see why they were protecting the princess. He kept suggesting that they hand her over to the enemy. Unfortunately, the enemy kept trying to kill us, so we never got the chance. So, we finally reach a friendly fort with an army. I suggest leaving the princess there and then going off the seek fame and fortune. The DM and the party get annoyed at me for attempting to derail the adventure and everything the DM had planned. I eventually get so annoyed at them stifling my creativity that I just retire the character and play one that works for the government itself as a soldier and would do anything to protect the kingdom.

It was at that point that I realized that character creation needs to work both ways. The player needs to accept input for what characters may not be appropriate and the DM needs to work to find reasons for the PCs he has to go on adventures. If anyone had ever told my character "We're willing to pay for mercinaries to help us fight the invaders." I would have done anything they wanted.

 

[Akrasia]

... Have fun with WHFRP and HeroQuest .

Indeed.

 

[woodelf]

Fair enough. However, I have to ask whether this is "assuming the GM follows the written rules of the game" or "in your actual play experience?"

The first can be argued to slow the game down (as the GM looks up rules). The second is an argument for inconsistency, but then I would counter that you're playing a rules-heavy game as if it were rules light, because you're not actually drawing on its written rules. Consequently, it's no more consistent, but it's probably not a lot slower in play either.

Hmmm...I'm not sure whether i'm arguing for a theoretical situation, or only for my own experiences. IME, while failing to consistently use all of the rules, it is nonetheless slower than a rules-light game. Yes, if i actually stripped it down to a rules-lite game, it probably would be neither more consistent, nor slower. But that'd be a *lot* of stripping--i'd have to toss 90% of the rulebook to get to that point. As is, i'm probably using 90% of the rules, and only [unintentionally] screwing up or [intentionally] glossing over 10%--or maybe much less. I'm hardly "playing [it] ... as if it were rules light".

Over time, assuming the GM and his players try to learn the rules, the consistency factor from coming up with rulings on the fly should go up and the slowdown factor from looking up rules should go down. If all games used the same system, then all experience is cummulative, to the extent that the mechanics are consistent, and there's only one learning curve to travel along, not one for each game you play.

In fact, 3e advocates precisely this: make a ruling to the best of your recollection and move on with the game. Look it up later. The assumption is that over time you'll actually start making better and more consistent rulings. At least, that's how I understand it (and it's consistent with MY experience). And the OGL and d20 system are about addressing the learning curve issue.

Hmmm... hadn't thought of it like that. I can tell you that 2.5yrs of playing D&D3E, and ~9mo of playing Arcana Unearthed has not been sufficient for me to get anywhere near mastering the rules. I'm not sure if my on-the-fly rulings are getting more consistent with themselves, but i do know they are not getting more consistent with the written rules--roughly the same things are still getting "screwed up", and i suspect some of them will always be that way, until and unless i do memorized the rules, because they're precisely those things that are particularly counter-intuitive for me.

I guess my counter to that particular hypothesis [that the rules are expected to be more than anyone can master quickly, but are intended to have a consistent underlying structure such that continued experience makes improvising rules consistently easy] is as follows: That may have been the goal, but (1) i question the goal and (2) i question the success of reaching it.

1: I think that's a poor choice. But i may just be outvoted. Based on both discussions here and the WotC survey, continually increasing complexity is a feature, not a bug. Personally, i want the mechanics side of my RPGs to be something i can sit down and read once, and have the whole thing figured out and remembered.

2: Even were i to accept that premise as desirable, i'm not convinced that D&D3E has achieved it. Maybe it's just the way my brain works, but i'm constantly frustrated by the inconsistencies--just when i think i've figured things out, i discover another subsystem/modifier/whatever that breaks what i *thought* was the underlying structure. So, either i still haven't found it, or the game is riddled with exceptions (or both).

Finally, even assuming i'm wrong (or in the minority, as applicable) on both of the above points, there's still he issue that each D20 System game is different. Since it's not the underlying structure, but all the little details, that require referencing and make it a crunchy system (if all the combat rules consisted of was "+/-2 per advantage/disadvantage", thus stripping out 20+pp of combat rules, it'd no longer be high-crunch), the fact that there are essentially no two D20 System games that agree on all those details pretty much shoot any advantage they might have on the learning curve, in the foot. [At least some of my "mistakes", above, come from remembering the D&D3E rule, rather than the Arcana unearthed rule. Others i've talked to have made similar points--most notably about D&D3E/D&D3.5E-- about minor changes to nominally the same system.]

 

[woodelf]

I believe the mastery is supposed to occur over cumulative campaigns, as you say. One of the reasons Ryan Dancey thought it important to try to have as much rules portability as possible, I suppose.

I've always thought that a fairly questionable solution.
Problem: rules are too complex to learn during one campaign.
Solution 1: play multiple campaigns
New Problem: people get tired of a given genre/setting before they can play sufficient multiple campaigns.
Solution 2: get everybody to use the same system, so that players can switch setting/genre without switching systems.

To me, the "obvious" solution to the problem is:
Solution 1a: make the rules simpler.

Now, admittedly, if people really do want games sufficiently complex that repeated play is the only way to learn/master them, then this is a reasonable solution. My personal experience is that that level of complexity is something put up with for other reasons (perceived verisimillitude, game balance, etc.), rather than something desirable on its own. Dunno whether all the RPers i know are outliers, whether the WotC research is flawed [since they won't reveal the details], or whether many/most of the RPers i know are lying to themselves.

Anyway, as John Snow pointed out, 3e explicitly tells new DMs to make a ruling on the spot and check it after the session is over. That, IMO, is the best solution.

Sure, but unless you at some point utilize the rules--such as by looking it up afterwards and using the real rule the next time it comes up--what's the advantage of all the crunch? There's really no point in having tons of rules you don't use, so, obviously, the intention is for you to use them, and making spot rulings is a fill-in solution for when you fail to use the "real" rule.