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Message: <blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 8417396" data-attributes="member: 86653">Exactly. Design the game in such a way that it produces the results you want in play. Further, that using a carrot to produce the results you want is far better than using a stick. So if you want players to rush in, reward rushing in. If you want players to focus on the world instead of the rules, you need to push the rules into the background. That's dramatically easier to do with lighter rules than heavier.No, but that's definitely a reason to keep whatever rules you're using on the DM's side of the screen.Sure. And you can do that by telling the players "the system is 2d6, roll high; and if you're in a direct contest opposed 2d6 rolls, high roll wins" is the sum total of the game system. You have a completely open game, the players know all the rules, and they're light enough that they stay out of the way so everyone can focus on playing the world, not the rules.Well, good thing that's not what the argument is. The argument is (and it's backed up by heaps of actual data) that gamers will optimize the fun out of the game, i.e. they will pick the most efficient path regardless of how boring and dull it is and that they will make choices based on the game's mechanics rather than a) what's fun, or; b) what their character would do if they were a real person in a real world as presented by the fiction. The empirical evidence I've collected in my time running and playing games since 1984 matches that conclusion exactly. Some examples. Grappling in 3X. Regardless of whether the fiction would call for or the character would honestly choose to grapple a target, the mere fact of using 3X D&D means that there's a huge hurdle to that choice, one that elicits groans from players and DMs to this day when it's mentioned. So, instead of doing that thing that makes the most sense for the fiction or the character (i.e. grapple a target), the player will always choose something else because almost without exception whatever that "something else" is will be easier than dealing with the grappling rules. Improvised actions and basic attacks in 4E. Despite the wonderful Page 42, the majority of players ardently stuck with their at-will powers because it was the optimal choice. Likewise with the refusal to make basic attacks going so far as to admonish other players for making basic attacks instead of using an at-will power because a basic attack was sub-optimal. And going all the way back to AD&D...the tap, tap, tapping of 10ft poles. Despite it being literally the most boring, tedious, ridiculous waste of time and least fun option possible, it was such an ingrained default style of play that when people start AD&D games now they take the time to ask if they need to bother with them or not. So players would literally waste half the game session or more poking and prodding at every square inch of a dungeon simply because there might be a trap somewhere. I think that's the king of "players will optimize the fun out of the game". The optimal choice is to carry a 10ft pole and tap at every surface you can reach, because there might be traps. It's also the most boring style of play possible. Yet it utterly dominated the era. Right. Rules that focus on the fiction, that present a coherent world, and drive play towards particular goals produce better results. But there are multiple kinds of rules and rule books. <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-invisible-rulebooks.html" target="_blank">Check this out</a>. The FKR just relies more on aligning the table's invisible rulebooks and getting on with it rather than pouring over thick tomes of rules. Do you need 20 pages of social interaction rules or can you just pretend your character is a real person and interacting with other real people and talk to them as such? Do you need a list or precisely detailed moves or can you just declare what your character would do and roll 2d6? Neither is better or worse. Rules heavy, rules medium, rules light, rules ultralight, freeform. They're all great. As long as the rules don't get in the way, don't produce absurdities, and don't contradict the fiction they're supposedly trying to represent. Some people want more rules scaffolding, others less.</blockquote>

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