Sorry - I think the point was missed...

[Turjan]

Please don't refrain from posting your thoughts because of the small vocal minority of anti-Dancey people.

I don't see any "anti-Dancey people" in this thread. As I understand it, we are discussing concepts, not people. Please, don't mix this up.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Ummm actually i run A forgotten Realms Game every satruday usually 5+ hours long and you know what i spend maybe a half hour on the game every week, heck this week i didnt do a darn thing the players followed up on something mentioned a few sessions ago and made there own fun, and aside from a few plot points everything was made up on the spot by myself.
personally though Rules lite is no better or worse than a complicated game like D&D, its all up to the DM and players to make the game fun, i cant stand Tri-Stats weak system (though ive never seen or heard it refered to as a rules lite game i consider it one), but when a friend of mine ran a game of it i didnt let my distain for the system ruin my fun because he had a good story and we all had interesting characters.

 

[SWBaxter]

I submit that any game where things are in writing is going to be more consistent than one in which they are not.

Quite possibly. But of course, that has nothing at all to do with rules heavy versus rules light. For example, HeroQuest is generally considered to be a rules light game, while D&D is generally considered a rules heavy game. HeroQuest quite specifically details the in game benefits you gain from having your family support whatever you're doing versus the ramifications of being a black sheep, while D&D is pretty much silent on this matter. This means that HeroQuest is more consistent in that particular area, despite being a "lighter" game.

The more rules-light a game is, the more it sacrifices by-the-book consistency for simplification.

That's simply false; in fact, often the opposite is true. Rules-light games tend to be more consistent because they usually rely on a single mechanic for every situation, whereas heavier games have different subsystems that result in different levels of detail for various activities. That makes the rules-light games more consistent. What they lack is the detail and focus on specific areas of play. For example, D&D has lots of rules for killing bad guys, and comparitively few for most subtler forms of interaction. Choosing the right rules set becomes a matter of finding the right balance of coverage and focus. Usually, it's not as straightforward as light vs. heavy... HeroQuest, which as I mentioned is usually seen as rules-light, has an awful lot of detail and rules concerning how various augments stack together because that's an important part of the genre it's attempting to emulate. So while HQ's basic system is pretty light, there's still a lot of pages dedicated to what the authors see as a core part of the game. Just like D&D, with at heart a pretty simple mechanic, has lots of pages devoted to killing bad guys and taking their stuff.

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 player, I only care about this in adversarial situations, which is not (IMHO) a particularly desireable element of the player-GM relationship. Often it's appropriate for a situation to be handled differently depending how important it is and how much fun it'd be to play through it. For example, say in a fantasy campaign there's a big war between the pseudo-Arthurian good guys and the Mordor-like bad guys. I would expect - heck, pretty much demand - that a battle be handled differently depending on whether the PCs are present.

In summary, it does not appear to me that the line of argument you've chosen has much - if anything - to do with the relative merits of rules-light versus rules-heavy games.

 

[Dragonblade]

I don't see any "anti-Dancey people" in this thread. As I understand it, we are discussing concepts, not people. Please, don't mix this up.

Actually, with one minor exception, this thread has been much better than the previous one that is now over 700 posts. A lot of people seemed to oppose Dancey's conclusions for no other reason than that he is Ryan Dancey, and thus not to be listened to.

Personally, if I was WotC, had deep pockets, and I was thinking about designing the next version of D&D/d20, my core game designer dream team would consist of Ryan Dancey, Monte Cook, Steve Kenson, Mike Mearls, Skip Williams, Jonothan Tweet, Bruce Cordell, and Sean Reynolds.

Based on all of their work and their writings, these guys truly understand game design not only as art, but especially as science.

 

[Mythmere1]

I had a post earlier in which I mentioned something that I'd just like to repeat (I think it got lost in a longer post).

Next set of surveys and testing, in addition to watching the play at the game table, watch some DMs preparing the adventure beforehand. I bet some interesting product ideas and other ideas would stem from that.

 

[Mythmere1]

Thanks for the tips. I have the WFRPG2, but I'm not sure whether 'grim and gritty' is the style we are all after. C&C deemed more suitable for people with an intimate knowledge of AD&D, which I don't have, and I heard that the rulebook is not really complete without AD&D background material. True20 has evaded all my attempts at achieving it so far (3 orders cancelled by the vendor), and modern fantasy like Buffy is not really my style. Sorry for being such a complicated customer . I tried HeroQuest, but it seems to complicated for the players (they don't have that much time, either, and HeroQuest is hard to spoon-feed). I'm not sure whether I should try FATE. Let's see what RuneQuest brings.

I don't think C&C requires prior knowledge of D&D; it would help, but only in the sense that any RPG is easier to play if you've played another RPG before - familiarity with any edition of D&D would certainly help more than other RPGs. I came to it with the D&D familiarity there, so it's hard to say how well it functions as a read-cold introduction to the D&D-type game mechanic. But that material all seems to be in there - I just skipped over it. If you've played AD&D and didn't LIKE it, that's probably a sign that C&C's not your cup of tea. But I don't think intimate familiarity with AD&D is required. Familiarity with ANY version of D&D would probably be a big asset, though.

One benefit to C&C for the "complicated customer" is that it's easy to house rule. The downside is that its flexibility is bounded within the class-archetype concept. If that model doesn't appeal, I'd go a different route.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

I've gotten bored of this argument as well, I'm afraid. I see the division between rules-light and rules-heavy as simply being a symptom of the fact that preferences within the hobby differ along many axes. I think what everybody's saying is true for them, within their own location on those axes.

It makes a lot of sense for a game whose primary intent is to make a lot of money to appeal to the most popular collection of preferences. No argument there. It would be nice if people would do more along the lines of "That product isn't meant for my preferences" rather than "That product is terrible because it fails at X,Y, and Z (all of which are my preferences)".

I'm fine with saying that for where I am along various preferences axes, my personal interests have nothing to do with D&D, and vice versa. These threads have been helpful in helping me get a handle on that.

 

[Turjan]

I'm fine with saying that for where I am along various preferences axes, my personal interests have nothing to do with D&D, and vice versa. These threads have been helpful in helping me get a handle on that.

I respect your decision, but I think that threads like this exist because people think that things can be done better, and this with the result that even more people than now can agree on the point that D&D is a good game. Keep in mind that, despite my criticism, I think D&D is a good game. I like it as a player, but I don't like to DM it (and I think Akrasia said something similar about what he thinks of D&D3x). For me, there are several ways out of this dilemma:

(i) making the game more rules-light, but I see that most people don't want to trade the loss of some player options for making the life of the GM easier;

(ii) making the game more modular; the logical and integrated concept of D&D3x makes it harder to remove complicating aspects from the game without touching its core, unlike the situation with the old hotchpotch of AD&D, where fuddling with one subsystem didn't have much effect on others.

(iii) doing something about the prep chore for GMs who don't have the system internalized and/or don't have the prep time (as Mythmere1 mentioned).

We will see whether anyone comes up with an easy solution for this problem.

 

[Starman]

Personally, if I was WotC, had deep pockets, and I was thinking about designing the next version of D&D/d20, my core game designer dream team would consist of Ryan Dancey, Monte Cook, Steve Kenson, Mike Mearls, Skip Williams, Jonothan Tweet, Bruce Cordell, and Sean Reynolds.

I'd swap out Williams and Cordell with Ari Marmell and Wil Upchurch. Then I'd add Chris Pramas. Now, that's a design team.

Starman

 

[S'mon]

I'd swap out Williams and Cordell with Ari Marmell and Wil Upchurch. Then I'd add Chris Pramas. Now, that's a design team.

Starman

Sounds good. Wil does great fluff but is weak on mechanics. Monte seems generally strong on mechanics but weak on fluff/flavour (IMNSHO). Skip is mediocre all-round, so leave him out. Tweet is brilliant but iconoclastic.

Oh, and add Aaron Allston. He knows how to (a) Keep It Simple and (b) Make It Fun.