Sorry - I think the point was missed...

[Gentlegamer]

Ah, well, my favorite terms are "Dungeon Master" (for its legacy) and the far more descriptive "Referee."

My question invoked another Knights of the Dinner Table reference . . .

 

[Gentlegamer]

I've made this point many times in the past, and I will probably have to make it many times again in the future ...

There is *nothing* intrinsic to 'rules light' game systems that render them more likely to be 'inconsistent/squidgy' than 'rules heavy' game systems.

Rules light(-ish) systems simply provide *more general* mechanisms to resolve situations. These can be used in a perfectly consistent manner through the course of endless gaming sessions. (Indeed, because these mechanisms are more general, and thus involve fewer variables and modifiers, their implementation is likely to be *more* consistent than the use of more complex mechanisms in rules heavy systems.)

Inconsistencies only arise if the GM of a rules light system tries to introduce numerous ad hoc modifiers and variant rules in order to better 'simulate' the environment/situation he/she is describing.

But, as I have also said many times before, if you want a 'simulationist' game, rules light is not the way to go.

Well said. Certain styles and genres fit better into different rules sets. That is why there are those, like me, that like d20, but realize the limitations of its supposed universal RPG applicability.

 

[JohnSnow]

Rules light(-ish) systems simply provide *more general* mechanisms to resolve situations. These can be used in a perfectly consistent manner through the course of endless gaming sessions. (Indeed, because these mechanisms are more general, and thus involve fewer variables and modifiers, their implementation is likely to be *more* consistent than the use of more complex mechanisms in rules heavy systems.)

So what you're saying is that rules are consistent at the level of detail that they try to represent to the extent that the gamemaster follows them?

Then I'd say we agree. My point is that the level of detail I've observed in rules-light games is insufficient for the kind of game I like to play. And if you try to model more detail without having rules to cover it then it's no longer going to remain consistent, unless you note down the situational modifier you made so that you can reuse it, in which case your rules-light system just got a little more rules-heavy.

More general = less detailed

So it comes down to how much detail you want in your games.

By the way, details without rules behind them are just make-believe - the kids playing "cops & robbers" example. They add nothing to the game, although they may add to the overall experience of playing the game. But they're no more relevant to its outcome than what the players are drinking is. So is the point of a roleplaying game just to "have fun & roleplay" or is the game aspect of it relevant?

 

[Mercule]

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.

And I like the term "Game Master" for similar reasons. It's the job of the GM to keep the game moving, address player concerns, arbitrate the rules, etc. Can you run a game that is more democratic? Absolutely, but IME, very few players want to put that much effort into things.

Even a GM running a published setting and published adventures puts in more time and effort to fulfill his responsibilities than the rest of the players put together.

You could say "game sheppard", "game guide", "game overseerer", or even "referee"; but those pretty well boil down to the same thing. The GM is the guy who stands at the edge of the court and calls fouls, cleans up after the game, makes sure things are scored accurately, etc. I guess, "referee" is maybe the most appropriate word.

 

[Akrasia]

...
So it comes down to how much detail you want in your games...

Right.

IME, for *fantasy* gaming, I prefer the detail to be related to the game world and characters, not the rules (though I do like some rules -- I am really more of a 'rules medium' person than a 'rules light' person, a la Fudge). In contrast, if I wanted to run something like Squad Leader, I would have different expectations. YMMV.

...
By the way, details without rules behind them are just make-believe - the kids playing "cops & robbers" example. They add nothing to the game, although they may add to the overall experience of playing the game. But they're no more relevant to its outcome than what the players are drinking is. So is the point of a roleplaying game just to "have fun & roleplay" or is the game aspect of it relevant?

I'm not sure what the point of this comment/question is.

*Most* of RPGing, IME, is 'make-believe' -- viz. describing different worlds, religions, politics, characters, plots, etc.

Rules provide the players with mechanisms to resolve conflicts within the situations that they collectively imagine.

They also add the drama of uncertainty to the experience -- rolling dice is what accomplishes this (e.g. "I am a pretty good ranger, but there is a chance that I fail to track the beast, etc.").

Both of these functions can be realized by rules medium and rules light systems.

As Psion always says in his sig: the rules should serve the game (or, as I would put it, the story).

'Rules heavy' systems tend to get in the way of the kinds of games *I* like to run as a GM.

For some people, the rules are *primary*. But that's definitely *not* my style.

 

[Turjan]

And bringing up all the things that other games have rules for that D&D doesn't is another diversion from the topic. Obviously, that means there are areas in which D&D could be considered "rules-light." Near as I can tell, that's intentional. D&D doesn't have rules for everything. It's quite upfront about the fact that it provides more rules for some situations (like combat), less for others (like interacting with NPCs), and covers some not at all from a rules point of view. For example, it mostly provides "guidelines" for politics as opposed to actual rules. Personally, I don't need detailed discussions of NPC behavior - as a human, I can understand human behavior reasonably well without a rulebook. I also think that's largely the point of alignment. Rather than going into the complexity of Illithid society and writing a thesis on the psychology of Mind Flayers, the books simply say "Illithids are E-Vil" because that concept, once grasped, makes it pretty easy for the DM to decide how they'll behave in general. To clear it up, the game even spells out what it means when it says good, evil, lawful and chaotic.

Well, I don't think that "writing a thesis on the psychology of Mind Flayers" has anything to do with mechanics for social interaction in games. That statement may be good for a laugh, but doesn't really meet the point. One example given for a rules-light game with social mechanics was HeroQuest. There you have a hard time if you play the lone warrior without social background. In order to succeed with a heroquest you will have to fall back on (or might be hindered by) your network of social relations that you started with or built up during gaming. These will be expressed by numbers, not by a thesis .

 

[JohnSnow]

I'm not sure what the point of this comment/question is.

*Most* of RPGing, IME, is 'make-believe' -- viz. describing different worlds, religions, politics, characters, plots, etc.

Sorry, but what you're describing here is "roleplaying" or "worldbuilding," not roleplay-gaming. The gaming aspect comes when the roleplaying meets the mechanics.

Rules provide the players with mechanisms to resolve conflicts within the situations that they collectively imagine.

They also add the drama of uncertainty to the experience -- rolling dice is what accomplishes this (e.g. "I am a pretty good ranger, but there is a chance that I fail to track the beast, etc.").

Both of these functions can be realized by rules medium and rules light systems.

True. But the level of detail in the game is relevant to what aspects of the imagined situations are relevant to the game aspect of the "roleplaying game." A situation that is wholly imagined, but lacks mechanical impact is relevant in a roleplaying sense, but not from a game sense.

Put another way, the roleplaying and the mechanics combine to create a roleplaying game. For example, in reality, why doesn't everyone just always disarm their opponents in combat? Answer: because disarming someone is harder than just hitting them. However, if it's not harder in game (i.e. mechanical) terms, then the game doesn't reflect that simple statement, and disarming is either more effective or less so than it should be, from a believability sense.

That doesn't necessarily mean you "need" an Improved Disarm feat, as maybe your only reflection of "better" in the game is a character with more experience (i.e. higher level). Personally, I like the fact that 2 low-level fighters can have distinctions that have a mechanical impact on the game. I grant C&C's Prime system is a distinct improvement over AD&D in this regard, but I just don't think it's enough.

As Psion always says in his sig: the rules should serve the game (or, as I would put it, the story).

Ah, this may be where we differ. I don't think the rules should "serve the story," they should help to "create" the story. They should serve the RPG experience, which could be loosely referred to as "the game" (which is, I believe, how Psion means the phrase). That may be a subtle semantic distinction, or it may be huge. I feel that the experience of roleplaying games is about combining mechanics and imagination/story elements to create a story that surprises everyone. It's not about the players tromping around in a world entirely of the DM's imagination.

YMMV.

 

[woodelf]

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)

And what's wrong with that? They make their argument--politely and succinctly--and you consider the new facts (if they actually are new to you), and either change your ruling, or don't. An dthen you get on with the game. We do that all the time. Sometimes it's a rules matter ("The wemic hits you for--" "hey! I got a 38 on my hide check! how'd he spot me?" "sorry--forgot about that. let me see. <roll spot check> you're right--no way he'd know where you are. So, who would he try and attack?..."), sometimes it's a reality matter ("i'm going to saw through the bars with my jeweler's saw" "ok, that'll take...a minute" "actually, it'd probably be more like 5min with just a jeweler's saw" "oh. ok. 5min it is."), and sometimes it's a style/assumption issue ("i'm going to run up, grab the flask, then dive out the window and bounce off the tent awning" "ok, that'll be an attack roll, and an opposed str check, and a tumble check next round for the jump/landing" "really? i figured i could do all that as part of one action--it's not really an attack, just grabbing the flask for show. OK, in that case, skip the flask, i'm just going out the window"). Doing it this way, the rules are what *everyone* wants, not just the GM -- or the game designer.

Mind you, if it's easier for your group(s) to have a neutral third party do the deciding, that's cool--it's your game. I'm just pointing out that there are groups out there that are able to resolve these things without needing the rules to spell it out--and without it devolving into arguments or hurt feelings or stupid rulings.

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.

Yep--bad rules, and a stubborn GM, are not a good mix. But there's a lot of middle ground between that and playtested-and-published official rules. While bad rules decisions can ruin a game, so can bad non-rules decisions (the sort that are as much tehre in crunchy games as rules-lite games.

Conversely, let my trot out a little story that i've frequently used as an example. All you old-timers, you can skip to the point at the bottom of the post.

Several years ago, i was playing in a generally-excellently-run D&D game (AD&D2, with the various Complete ... books, if you need to be specific). For quite some time--at least a year or two--the recurring villain had been this sadistic, vengeful, torture-loving bastard. He was played fairly convincingly, so much so that i realized i needed to retire my character because i wasn't able to have fun. I was too attached to the character, and his current abilities, and all his stuff, so i was too busy being worried about him not getting mutilated or abused to get into the game. On top of that, the character was someone who, faced with such a nasty enemy, would run and hide, rather than adventuring. So, given the opportunity (essentially a wish), that's exactly what i had him do.

Thus giving me the opportunity to introduce a character suited to the mood of the game. See, i didn't object to the nastiness in the game--i just couldn't enjoy it through the character i'd been playing. So, with the GM's permission, we figured out an appropriate character to fit into the game. In this case, a revenant lizardman ranger/psion. Roughly in line with the other characters (since he could never gain any more levels, the GM let me roll my level, with a small chance of being higher than the rest of the party). It seemed to me like a perfect fit for the campaign: he had a specific grudge against the Big Bad that had been the focus of 75-90% of our adventures so far; he had acid [Big Bad's favored torture method] immunity and regeneration, allowing him to take a licking and keep on ticking, and me to enjoy the game without worrying about my character being maimed in a way that would spoil him for me; he had the ability to find the Big Bad [revenant] and some powers to help get to him (ranger and psionic travel stuff); and, perhaps most importantly, he really didn't have any way to seriously harm the Big Bad. Oh, sure, he could wail on him for a while with his magic sword, but we knew from experience that the Big Bad was well hitpointed, had pretty awesome AC and other protections, and could pretty much teleport at will. So, i thought i had the perfect set-up: a character focused on the existing, apparently undefeatable, Big Bad, and an opportunity for some great RPing, because the revenant basically ain't gonna quit until he wins, and basically couldn't win--frustration, obsession, hate, all sorts of fun things. Plus, not much the Big Bad hated more than failing to get a reaction from his victims, so an unfeeling, regenerating "victim" should've pretty quickly made my character a special target, making the hatred and frustration mutual.

So, the first session that i play the new character, suddenly a different badguy shows up, and the other chars all go after him. Which was fine right up until the Big Bad showed up on my radar (i.e., was within range), at which point the revenant, of course, takes off after him (after failing to persuade any of the other chars to join him). [He was content to go along with the rest of the party on whatever quest, because he knew they were also particular enemies of the Big Bad, but not when his obsession was right near by. I kept that in mind when crafting his motivations--he wouldn't be restricted to only playing well with others when the Big Bad was involved, he just couldn't choose something else when the Big Bad was involved.] After a day or so of chase (fairly uneventful, since the Big Bad was tough, and my character was in shadow form, but he was faster), i finally catch up to him on a docked ship. I discover that, due to events that none of the PCs were aware of or had anything to do with, however tangentially, the Big Bad had been stripped of most of his magic items by some powerful creature we weren't even previously aware existed. He hides in the darkness; i have infravision. He gets the jump on me; i've got enough hitpoints. I attack. I roll a 20. I roll a 20 on the critical chart [houserules]. So i behead him with a single strike, instantly killing him. The first strike i'd ever, in-game, attempted against him. In fact, the first strike the character had ever attempted, period, even given his backstory [he was just a random victim, with no contact with the Big Bad before being slaughtered on a whim]. One of the things that had prevented us killing the Big Bad in the past was a belt that would explode if the wearer were ever killed, or the belt removed. And, just to add insult to injury, my character doesn't even go out in a blaze of glory--I have enough energy conversion to survive the blast. So, here's my revanant, rendered pointless in the first session by a fluke dieroll, and killing his nemesis in a completely unsatisfactory way. And, even if i wanted to keep playing him, i have to retire him--vengeance exacted, time to crawl back into his grave. Oh, and the Big Bad ended up coming back a few months later (i don't remember the in-game happenings that led to this). So i'd had to retire a character specifically crafted to fit into the campaign, and the reason for the retirement was later reversed.

Now, did the GM do anything wrong? Maybe. In hindsight, it's obvious to me that he should've fudged the roll. But, really, this one came down to a problem of communication and expectations. I thought i'd made it clear that i was (1) playing a character specifically crafted to fit into the existing campaign, and (2) that the whole point was playing a character failing to exact revenge, repeatedly, against the object of his obsession. Or, at least, encoutnering the nemesis repeatedly and unsuccessfully before finally succeeding through a clever plan--not a fluke of luck. And certainly not through some 3rd party's actions. And then the GM, i'm sure acting on the best of intentions, abruptly changed the campaign in a radical way, and specifically changed the primary element that i'd hooked my character into. The GM either didn't believe in fudging where player dierolls were involved (or in fudging against the characters, perhaps), or misunderstood what i wanted out of the game (thinking that my player goal was killing the Big Bad, rather than attempting to kill the Big Bad). Or he thought/knew that the other players were sick of this villain, and saw my proposed character concept as the perfect way to tie up the loose end. Or i misunderstood the GM, and thought of the Big Bad as one of the primary foci of the campaign, when to the GM he was just some NPC. Or the GM and i had different ideas of success--i wanted a meaningful, difficult, hard-won victory for that character, while he thought either that i simply wanted victory, or that the frustrations i'd endured with the previous character would carry over, making this victory meaningful. Or several of teh above. Or something else that i've not bothered to enumerate here because this message is long enough, or because i've just never thought of it.

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. I never bothered making another character or rejoining the game, even though all my friends (including my girlfriend) were playing in it weekly and it was *the* social activity of the week. I still consider that double-20 the worst roll of my gaming career [because it's the only roll i've ever made that spoiled my fun, rather than just causing an unwanted result]. I just couldn't get into the game any more. And i don't think it was a bad game, at all. I'd generally had a good time, and everyone else kept playing the game for years after that point, and still loved it. Most of the players raved about the game all the time. It converted several people to RPGs. He's still considered one of the best GMs around, years later, and there's almost-literally a waiting list to get into his games.

 

[woodelf]

You can't use the argument that "an unreasonable DM can make hash of a rules-heavy system" as a counter to "a reasonable, but imperfect, DM can make hash of a rules light system." The former may be an accurate statement, but it doesn't address the claim in the latter. Obviously, a perfect, reasonable DM can run both with no problems. Personally, both as a player and a DM, am more concerned about reasonable, imperfect DMs than I am about unreasonable DMs, who I simply refuse to game with.

I think the rules-heavier side, like me, is arguing the latter point - that a reasonable, but imperfect (i.e. human) DM can make mistakes that wreck the experience for his players if that consistency is important to them. Is there a counter to that other than "I just think it's too complicated for my gaming style?"

I think so, and here it is: "A reasonable, but imperfect, GM is no less likely to make consistency-wrecking mistakes in a crunchy system than a rules-lite system, and may, in fact, be more likely, due to the greater volume of rules to keep track of."

And it's not just the hypothetical converse argument--it's my experience. Certainly that crunchiness doesn't help the imperfect GM, in general [remember: IME], and, in my particular case, that it actively hinders (but i make no claims that there is a single other GM out there with that particular problem).

 

[woodelf]

So what you're saying is that rules are consistent at the level of detail that they try to represent to the extent that the gamemaster follows them?

Then I'd say we agree. My point is that the level of detail I've observed in rules-light games is insufficient for the kind of game I like to play. And if you try to model more detail without having rules to cover it then it's no longer going to remain consistent, unless you note down the situational modifier you made so that you can reuse it, in which case your rules-light system just got a little more rules-heavy.

Which gets at the crux of the argument: several of us are claiming that the only way a truly rules-lite game could possibly not be faster than something fairly crunchy is if those playing the rules-lite game were trying to get the same level of detail out of it as out of the crunchy game--i.e., crunching it up a bit. And that seems to match RyanD's description, since he talked about arguments and figuring out details. And, further, that, therefore, what RyanD thinks of as "rules lite" may not match how those who're writing rules-lite games and are fans/advocates of them actually play them, and thus invalidate the whole point, because it's no longer comparing two real-world behaviors.