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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RyanD" data-source="post: 2393145" data-attributes="member: 3312">Excellent and interesting thread about my comments on Mike Mearls' blog.Unfortunately, I think my point was missed.  I'd like to clarify.Rather than being a specific critique of "rules lite" systems, my point was that the roleplaying game concept as a whole suffers from many problems that make it less fun than it could/should be to play.  In fact, I will specifically critique D20:  It is nowhere close to being as "fun" as it should be.Any time spent observing any large number of play groups (especially groups that are ad hoc rather than consistent) reveals that most RPG sessions are filled with "non fun" events.We persist in being fans of the format because it is "better" than totally unstructured roleplaying.  The point, after all, is to have a "game" and games require rules and structure.  Making the "game" more fun should be a stated objective of every person who is working in the field of RPG design.Ancedotally, we have some leads on what could make the format "more fun".We know that certain GMs consistently run games that are "more fun" than average.  Studying those GMs and trying to reduce what they do to a reproducible system that could be used by others is a potentially fruitful line of research.We know that when a group plays together over a long period of time without significant personel changes that the overall group "fun level" appears to increase for some groups (but not for others!).  Finding out what the successful groups are doing (and learning why the unsuccessful groups are failing) and trying to reduce those things to a system that could be reproduced would be fruitful.We know that different people seek different kinds of rewards in their RPG experiences.  Careful market research revealed 5 major psychographic profiles in the RPG community.  (<a href="http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/BreakdownOfRPGPlayers.html)" target="_blank">http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/BreakdownOfRPGPlayers.html)</a>.Learning how to identify what kind of person each player in a group is, and ensuring that elements of each game session appeal to each player's needs is likely to make the game "more fun" overall.These are just some of the obvious strategies that could be used to improve the RPG experience.  The question for us as consumers is:  when will we start demanding that claims like "more fun to play" are backed up with quantitative data, rather than designer opinion?  Will we reward companies who make an effort to make their games "more fun" or will we reward companies who make an effort to make their games different?What I do not think is helpful is sustaining the conventional wisdom that says "rules lite games are more fun to play".  This statement arises from a chain of logical reasoning:  Rules make games complex.  The more complex a game is, the harder it will be to play.  Therefore, reducing the number of rules should make a game easier to play.  The easier a game is to play, the more fun the game becomes.  Thus, rules lite games are more fun.There are several flaws in this chain of logic.  The first is that complexity may not be related to ease of use.  A very complex game that is presented efficiently and is designed to promote quick and effective resolution of in-game questions may be easier to actually use than a game with far fewer rules, but poorer presentation or gaps in the rules coverage.  The second is the assumption that "fun" and "easy to play" are related.  A lot of data suggests that one of the things many RPG players are seeking is "complexity that increases over time".  That is, part of the fun-factor in the RPG concept is related to mastery of a complex topic.  Take away the complexity, and for many people, you take away the fun.3E was engineered to be more fun.  That is, we identified areas of 2E that we thought were making the game less fun, tested those things to see if our theory was right, and when we were confident we were right, we worked to fix the problem, then we tested the solution to see if it worked.  This process, in varying degrees of formalism, was applied to virtually the entire 3E system.  Some areas were fixed because there was general consensus that they needed to be fixed and no testing was done.  Other areas were fixed not because a designer felt they needed to be fixed, but because during market research we discovered a problem otherwise unknown to the conventional wisdom.  And there are some things we think should have been fixed, but weren't, because the fix would have created such a disruption vs. the pre-existing 1E/2E network that the fix itself may have limited the number of people willing to upgrade.3.5E was a continuation of that effort.  3E play revealed further problems - some overlooked from 1E/2E and some caused unintentionally by 3E innovations.  The culture of "engineering" at WotC is very strong - and the desire to work to fix those problems became so powerful that the decision to revise the game was made.  Very little of the differences between 3E and 3.5E are asthetic.  Virtually all of them relate to designers trying to make the game "more fun".And all that engineering made only a very small dent in the problem.  3E/3.5E is not the end state - it is the first step.  Many, many more steps need to be taken.  The danger of not taking those steps is that the RPG format risks losing its network value to MMORPGs.  The RPG "hobby" can withstand a lot more attrition than the RPG "industry" can - so if you care about the ability of people to make a living designing RPGs, you have to care about how well those people are tackling the problem of making the RPG more fun than the MMORPG format.  I believe you should care, but your mileage may vary.This is not a problem related to D20.  It is an endemic, systemic problem that appears across virtually all RPGs.  If you gathered a large number of RPG designers in a room and posed the question "are RPGs less fun than they should be", I suspect that you'd have close to unanimity that the statement was true.  Regardless of which RPG you choose to focus on.That is the point I was making in the first place.</blockquote>

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