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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 2410221" data-attributes="member: 10201">I think your lack of experience with rules-lite RPGs is showing. Because there are plenty of RPGs out there that are both rules-lite, and give the GM *less* power than in a game like, say Fading Suns. They do this by giving the rest of the players *more* power than most other RPGs--in fact, i'll go out on a limb and say that some of them give the players more power than it is *possible* for the players to have in a high-crunch game (except by explicitly voiding much of the crunch).I think this goes right back to the "what is rules-lite" question that this thread (and the previous one) has been dancing around. There are at least three sorts of rules-lite games (that is, games with fewer rules):<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">1: those that come at the RPG experience from a similar place to, say, D&D3E or GURPS, but paint everything in broader strokes, with less detail. These games sound like what most people here (you and Ryan Dancey, in particular) are talking about.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">2: those that come at the RPG experience from the same place as, say, D&d3E or GURPS, but simply fail to fill in the details, expecting the playgroup to do so. These are the games that are most prone to frustrating due to lack of detail or inconsistency.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">3: those that come at teh RPG experience from a very different place than, say, D&D3E or GURPS. They therefore have very different goals, and might fulfill all of them as well as or better than GURPS fulfills its, despite having many fewer rules.</li> </ul>This is compounded by the fact that different people want different things out of their RPGs. The most obvious is that some want detailed tactical simulations, while some specifically want to avoid them.Now, if you want the same play experience as D&D3E, but using the C&C rules, of course you're going to find the rules lacking. And the GM is going to have to fill in all the details, quite possibly inconsistently. But if you only want the level of detail that the C&C rules provide, then it doesn't matter that more detail isn't there. C&C is no more broken for not having detailed skill rules than D&D is for not having detailed injury and medicine rules.You say that a rules-lite game is dependent on the GM, except where the rules adjudicate. First, that's true of all RPGs. I think what you're really complaining about isn't simpler rules--they can conceivably cover all the same topics, just with less depth/detail--but rules that are less-detailed than the playgroup wants them. Frex, i wish D&D3E had a combat system (perhaps as an alternate rule) that could resolve an entire combat in one roll [so that i could do an unimportant combat quickly, but without resorting to fiat], and a skill system that could break down most tasks, especially social interactions, into multiple rolls and give multi-axis results. So, applying your standards, D&D3E is too 'rules-lite' in the skill/social area (for my tastes). Second, and this gets back to my break-down of rules-lite RPG types above, the implication you're making is that all rules-lite games play just like a D&D3E game, but with half the rules missing. This couldn't be further from the truth. Again, if i want a D&d3E-like play experience, and attempt to achieve it using C&C, i'm going to be frustrated. However, if i want a C&C-like play experience, no disappointment will be found. More importantly, it's a three-way division of power, between GM, other players, and ruleset. Even if the power were simply additive, simple math would tell you that it's possible to decrease the power the ruleset holds without increasing the power the GM holds--simply by increasing the power the players hold. And lots of rules-lite games go that route. In some, you can barely tell the difference in power between the gM and the other players--the latter have *way* more power than in D&D3E.Let me give a simple hypothetical example: you talk about wanting to be able to predict the consequences of your actions in-game. One way to do that is the D&D3E way: a list of actions and consequences. But there are other, rules-lite, ways of providing both options and player knowledge--it is not necessary to resort to putting all that into the GM's hands. Frex, a single rule of "any significant advantage gives you a +2" would cover all of the options D&D3e gives you, would not put any more judgement into the GM's hands, and would, indeed, provide more options than D&D3E (which is limited to the combat options detailed, if you refuse to allow GM fiat)."ah," you object, "but the GM has to adjudicate 'significant'." No, she doesn't. The rules can easily be designed and written to make it abundantly clear that the person declaring the advantage gets to decide if it's significant. Or the rules could be designed to give others the power to challenge the declaration, but only within the rules themselves (such as Baron Munchausen's bidding mechanic).Also, IME, complex rulesets never seem to actually address the things i need when running a game, so they often don't decrease my GMing workload appreciably, anyway. frex, the current game is Arcana Uneathed. Here are the situations, just from the last session, that i could find no rules answer for and had to improvise:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">a skill for noticing a subtle clue hidden in a mural</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">what skill to invent a code and write something in it?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">balance is the skill for not loosing your footing on slippery ground; what's the skill for tricky acrobatic flying?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">what roll to determine whether a poison that has effected you was inhaled or contact?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">determining whether a scent that someone definitely smells is recognizable?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">what do you do about knowledges that don't fall under any of the knowledge skills? do you allow people to fall back to straight Int rolls? Isn't that unfairly penalizing someone for not taking a knowledge that wasn't available to be taken? no roll allowed? that's silly. roll off an inappropriate knowledge? not very satisfactory. </li> </ul>Number of ability-type checks that the game scenario clearly called for, and which had an obvious skill or other stat (saving throw, attack roll, etc.), during that same session? about a dozen (it was a slow-moving, mostly-RPing, session). IOW, roughly one in every three things that seemed like they should be up to character skill and/or chance during the session didn't give me a solid rules basis to go on, and thus required some degree of GM fiat. If i'd been using a game system that didn't have skills, or saves, or BAB, just everything based on the 6 core attributes, i wouldn't have had a problem--every one of those falls quite clearly under one of those 6.</blockquote>

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