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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 2414458" data-attributes="member: 32164">Well, as Akrasia accurately points out, the GM comes up with the whole setting. In a sense, everything in the game world is his creation. If it then functions according to rules he made up, well, the player's input is minimal to say the least.I can't be any clearer than the following two statements.As a player, I like to believe my decisions and choices (both while playing AND during character creation) have relevance to the game's outcome. If I make one choice, A will happen, but if I make another choice, instead B will happen. Anything that takes away from that element does not necessarily help to create the game I want to play.How is this complicated? You can't eliminate a level of detail from the rules and then claim it somehow magically exists. It's ridiculous.That's hyperbole. I'm perfectly comfortable with the GM coming up with homebrew settings and creating adventures. I just don't want their outcome and path pre-determined before I start playing.I said "entirely of the GM's imagination." In other words, if the sole point of my character is to be part of an overarching plot arc that the GM has predetermined, then it's pointless to play. The players should be a part of creating game world in collaboration with the GM. Granted, their contributions are going to be unequal. The GM has more control over most of the specifics, while the players have less. In fact, the one thing players truly do have control over (or should) is their own characters and the decisions those characters make. By eliminating the relevance of those choices, the GM is cutting back on his players' ability to contribute to the game.The only level at which this cropped up in our gameplay was that you were the one writing the character backgrounds. I grant you did try to take our ideas into account, but the details of the character were mostly fleshed out by you. Now, I know you had your reasons, but I would have liked it if the process could have been more collaborative.Asserting that options are somehow "unnecessary" simply because you don't like the added complexity is just unfair to those who are willing to put up with that complexity in exchange for those options. Claiming that the complexity doesn't increase the options isn't accurate. Claiming that you don't feel it's a necessary complexity is fine, but that's just an opinion, one that people are going to disagree with.I just don't buy the "feel" argument thrown around about rules-light games. IMO, feel is mostly system independent. However, it may not be GM-skill independent and some GMs have a different skillset than others. For most GMs, some systems are probably "superior" to others from this standpoint. However, gaming books exist to provide rules for gaming. A gaming book with fewer rules is a simpler, but, in my opinion, less complete game.That also doesn't make it "easy to play." Nothing truer has ever been said than "simple does not mean easy."As I said earlier, I wanted to like C&C, but it just doesn't provide the level of options I want in my game. And this isn't about making a Celestial-Half-dragon-Drow-Paladin of Legend - it's about making something as simple and archetypal as a dex-based fighter/thief and having the existing game rules support that concept with rules-based, mechanical distinctions. I shouldn't have to invent new rules to cover basic archetypes - and my biggest gripe with D&D are in the areas where it falls short on that score.As someone who engages in roleplay apart from my RPG experiences (as an amateur actor at the Ren Faire) , there is a significant and measurable difference between "roleplaying" and "playing an RPG." I realize that most rules-light games contain a resolution mechanic, but they gloss over what I consider to be relevant details. As an example, I'm sorry, but no amount of argument is going to convince me that an RPG doesn't need some way to model some characters being better than others (with roughly the same degree of experience) at two-weapon-fighting as a combat style. C&C, as an example, lacks such a rule. Instead, the designers tell me I should "make stuff up" if I want it in my game and they haven't included it. Well, I'm sorry, but I thought that's what I was paying them for: a mostly complete game (not totally accurate for C&C, since I didn't pay for it, but rather got it as a gift, but still <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />).Finally, I believe MoogleEmpMog is correct that the mastery is supposed to accumulate over successive campaigns. Over time, you should know the rules for 8th-level spells as well as you know the ones for magic missile (ones every gamer who's ever played any version of D&D can probably recite). And if you're using the same system, over time, even the players learn the rules.All of this is totally off Ryan's original point that, based on his observations, and in contradiction to his OWN anecdotal experiences, rules-light games did not actually PLAY any faster. You can scream that it doesn't match your experiences until you're blue in the face, but until someone produces an observational study with different data, I'm going to accept that Ryan is accurately reporting his findings. If that was the case and it doesn't match the body of anecdotal experience, then someyhing is screwy and should be investigated.</blockquote>

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