Sorry - I think the point was missed...

[eyebeams]

Market research written on the premise that gamers attitudes can be plotted along 4 quadrants find that gamers' attitudes can be plotted along 4 quadrants? Astounding!

 

[Ry]

I guess the reason I reacted so viscerally to the original quote stems from very unique circumstances on my part: I have a very close-knit group of players that have known each other for years, are close friends, have a lot of non-gaming experiences together, and are entirely on board for my games. For my group in particular, looking up rules takes forever - and when there aren't really rules to look up, they have to rely on me to be fair. Since I have such a good group (and they have 10 years of gaming with me), this is easy for them to do.

In response to the notes on complexity, above - I don't think rules-light systems necessarily eliminate the complexity from the game. Certainly, my games became more and more complex because of the PCs in-game options expand (items, contacts, and accumulated successes and failures), even if there is no more complexity coming from the high-end of the rules.

 

[Mythmere1]

I've gotten bored with the topic at this point, so: what Akrasia said, what tfoster said, and what national acrobat said.

I'll always love WotC for opening up the OGL, but I don't enjoy new D&D much. No insult to those who play it - it just doesn't work for me personally.

I won't go into the various reasons why I prefer C&C, since thankfully this thread isn't about that sort of thing. The one point I'll make is about prep time. Prep time wouldn't have shown up as a factor in the tests done by WotC as described. There's time when the GM has to be having fun long before the group meets - and that wasn't measured (and might not have been a factor between White Wolf and 2E - never played White Wolf).

Prep time was one of two factors in the game session that made me quit playing 3.5 and start looking for another game system.

If you do another set of tests, watch some DMs making adventures as well as watching groups play. That data will get you some valuable ideas, because I bet no one has approached a market study that way.

 

[Akrasia]

But the reason for that is that psychology is something everyone sorta understands. We all have some understanding of human behavior and thought, being that we're human (well...most of us), so we all feel qualified to comment.

Sorry if my previous post was a bit snippy, John. My irritation was based on the fact that, for me at least, playing a RPG is fundamentally a *cooperative* enterprise among *equals*. I have not viewed the activity through the prism of 'relative power' since high school. So the claim that 'rules light' systems appeal to a desire for 'power' struck me as completely false -- at least in my own case. (I didn't take too much offense to Dancey's claim, though, since it included the qualifier "some".)

Anyway...

So you're saying that reduced GM prep time is a desireable goal of a gaming system - one that rules-light systems contribute to. I can't disagree with that.

That said, it needs to be weighed relative to what people want from their gaming experience. The marketing study that Dancy linked to at the top of this thread mentioned the 8 core values people expect from RPGs. They are:

- Strong Characters and Exciting Story
- Role Playing
- Complexity Increases over Time
- Requires Strategic Thinking
- Competitive
- Add on sets/New versions available
- Uses imagination
- Mentally challenging

If this is accurate, even rules-light systems should meet these criteria in order to appeal to a broad segment of the gaming market. Systems that don't can still sell, but their appeal will be limited to a niche at best. Unless those core values have changed - that survey was 6 years ago.

Well, I don't disagree with most of those criteria. But, of course, different players will weigh those different criteria ... differently. And some of them can be realized in different ways -- e.g. 'strategic thinking' can be implemented both in terms of rules (in which case there remain many further differences -- e.g. strategy in 'combat' versus rules for modeling politics and intrigue), or in terms of the kinds of plots that a game is likely to support.

In my own case, though, I actually don't understand the "competitive" criterion (granted, I haven't read the study in question). If this means "competition among players and/or between the players and DM", I know that I do *not* want that as part of my RPGs. Wargames, sure, but not RPGs... But I am sure that some younger players might want such a feature in their games.

Also, even *players* might not want 'increasing complexity' if they have limited time and resources to devote to the hobby. Occasional gamers might prefer simpler systems that are easy to "pick up and play", and do not reward players who invest in splatbooks, etc.

Okay, I'm rambling now ...

 

[Erratic K]

I thought Lords of Darkness would be like that:

A flavorful NPC book.

I thought in the Zentarim section it would have NPC Zent Fighters, Wizard, and Cleric samples for levels 1 to 20, human for Zents. It could have even had one for every other level. Then in the section for Drow, they would have Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and Wizard.

The Night Masks would have Rog/Ftr multiclass and Rog in human, and halflings etc. Hmm what would the Red Wizards have?? Fire Knives?

It would be useful as a flavor book, but also good for a specialized NPC table (the one in the 3E DMG is close, and I end up using generics from that without racial adjustments and the like for quickness not versimilitude).

Anyway, it should get tied in to the detailed campaign setting, but be generic enough to be useful as NPCs.


-E

 

[Turjan]

... So the claim that 'rules light' systems appeal to a desire for 'power' struck me as completely false -- at least in my own case. (I didn't take too much offense to Dancey's claim, though, since it included the qualifier "some".)

I would go even further and say that the 'desire for power' as a motivation for the appeal of 'rules-lite' games, whether consciously or subconsciously, is complete rubbish in the case of GMs. There is basically not the slightest difference in GM power between rules-heavy and rules-light games. The GM sets the challenges for the players, and he can lead the game wherever he wants, despite all the input by the players. It's just more work for him in the case of a rules-heavy game.

It's true that a rules-heavy game offers more pre-packaged choices for the players, and this creates the illusion of more power for them, but it's an illusion, nevertheless. This point may be responsible for the stated observation that rules-heavy games are more fun for the players. For the GM, it often is not (I said often ).

This is true for me. I simply don't have the time for proper preparation of D&D 3.x games, and as I don't have the background of decades of (A)D&D experience, it takes more time for me than for many others. The fact that I have this additional workload for the sole purpose of creating the illusion for the players that they actually adjucate everything themselves (the example with the stone-lifting in the other thread was telling) makes me cringe. That's why I am looking for a 'rules-light' game. I don't deny that the players might have more fun with D&D 3.5e. Ideally, we all would like to have fun .

 

[RyanD]

Your entire approach to D&D sounds like it was all science and no soul.

I would say our approach would be more closely modeled on the actions of a studio producer. Our job was to listen to what people wanted to do, and sometimes figure out when they wanted something they weren't asking for, and then give them those features in a way that made sense and that they could interact with as intended.

I'll just close by saying that between Jonathan, Monte, Skip, Bill, T'ed, Kim, Rich, Keith, Lisa, David, Cindi, Jim, Peter, myself, and everyone else who was priviledged to work on 3E, there was a whole lotta soul.

 

[RyanD]

Are the rules-related benefits of a rules-heavy RPG greater than the negatives incurred from placing a Storyteller DM into a realm where he cannot control the narrative as easily?

I honestly have no good basis to issue an opinion. I suspect the answer is highly specific to the individual and the game in question.

 

[RyanD]

Market research written on the premise that gamers attitudes can be plotted along 4 quadrants find that gamers' attitudes can be plotted along 4 quadrants? Astounding!

That would be a bad study, and poor conclusions.

Many people have read that report and assumed we started with the two axis concept and worked backwards - because intuitively, many people sense that the conclusions are accurate based on their personal experiences. And we've been using that terminology in public now for close to 5 years, so for many people that nomenclature may predate their entry into the hobby (or into active communication with others about the hobby) and it may seem simply obvious to them.

We performed market research to explore as many different "wants and needs" of gamers as possible. I think there were something like 30 or 40 "axis" that we tracked data on (the long form questionaire was gigantic. I think I remember spending more than an hour filling one out as a test).

Of all those potential interests, we found that when we crunched the data using statistical tools, we found "clusters" of players clearly differentiating along the two axis identified in the report on Sean's site. That doesn't mean that everyone clustered into one of those axis. It means that when you looked at the data for statistically relevant correlations, we found them strongly along those two axis, forming four quadrents. There were of course lots of data points that didn't fit those graphs - but none of the "other data" points could be statistically correlated with enough other points to derive a trend - meaning that their preferences were substantially unique in the study. However, and this is key: so many of the data points we plotted clustered into these quadrents (and the middle area) that they represented a more than statistically significant portion of the whole study group and are thus a valid way to examine the audience as a whole.

This is an example of a conclusion being generated from good data that was gathered without preconceived notions, which, after having been processed into some kind of usable form, revealed an insight into the player community we didn't have when we started (or that we may have guessed at based on personal experience but could not quantify). Figuring out how to apply that insight into the product line became an engineering challenge, as opposed to a series of lucky guesses or random stabs in the dark.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The main reason I prefer rules light or rules medium games over 3e, is one simple factor. I want to play a game, explore a dungeon, not one room in a dungeon. Every week in my 3e game, we fight one fight that takes up the entire session. It's tanamount to watching a baseball game in which Griffey Junior gets one 5 hour at bat bat, lines a double into the gap in the first inning, then the game ends until next week.

In a rules lighter game, we may not get 9 innings, but we'd at least get to see if the Kid scores.


Probably a crappy ananlogy, but I can't help but use my two favorite hobbies together.

What I'm getting at is our 3e game is usually just that. One battle that takes hours. By comparison, our C&C game, involving most of the same players can go through most of a dungeon in one session. More at bats means more fun. BTW, I am a player in both games, so it ain't just DMs who prefer rules light.