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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 2409222" data-attributes="member: 10201">Let me provide a counter-example: i guarantee you that i am noticably less consistent when running Arcana Unearthed than i am running Over the Edge -- or even Werewolf: the Apocalypse. Heck, i was more consistent when running AD&D2 (no Players' Option). In all cases, precisely because there are more rules written down. See, give me a game that is within my capacity to memorize the rules, and i will quite consistently apply them. Even if that requires a fair bit of fiat on my part. But, give me rules that exceed my capacity--such as the vast majority of D20 System games--and i will make all sorts of sloppy rulings. Sometimes i'll remember the official rule and use it; sometimes i won't. Sometimes i'll decide to look it up when i can't remember, and sometimes i won't. Sometimes i'll find it quickly enough, and sometimes i'll just wing it when i don't find it right away. Sometimes my ad hoc rulings will be consistent with the official rule, and sometimes they won't be. And since a complex ruleset like D&D3E is beyond my ability to truly digest (apparently), i've not been able to suss out the underlying principles, making my extrapolations less likely to be inconsistent, which is much of the problem. [either that, or it's just plain inconsistent itself. But giving it the benefit of the doubt, i haven't been able to figure out why some attack actions have one modifier, and others another --at least not in all cases--and why some things are skills and others class abilities and others feats, and so on.]I think the problem is you're conflating simplicity with inconsistency. A game can be the former without being the latter. It's only when you ask a game to provide more detail than it's designed to provide that you run into consistency problems [assuming, of course, that the rules are consistent on their own level, of course].[warning, example by analogy ahead]Is Risk a lousy game because it doesn't simulate war and conquest accurately? Are those who like Risk just fooling themselves into thinking it's lighter than Axis & Allies? Or could it be that, by aiming for different goals, it is both more than adequate for those goals, and actually much lighter and faster in play? ----Oh, one other really significant point (at least in my littel brain) comes up: what RPGs *are* we talking about? Because the study was apparently conducted in the late '90s, and most of the truly rules-lite RPGs i'm aware of--those that behave like it's a feature, not a bug they need to compensate for--weren't in wide circulation, or even available, at that point. The only two i can think of for certain are OtE and Amber DRP. Feng Shui is really in the middle ground--the basic mechanic may be pretty simple, but it's all but buried in special powers. Fudge wasn't that well-known, though it is usually lite--but that depends on the implementation. Most of the truly rules-lite games i can think of have appeared, or at least become known, in the last 6 years.</blockquote>

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