Going back through the thread...
I am having a hard time following the logic of this article. Perhaps I'm stupid and don't see what is obvious to others but there are a couple of things I don't understand.
First off, it's stated that there are more new players at events and clubs than there used to be, and less experienced players. Ok. That's fine. But... the reason for this is that rpg rules are too complex? I don't get it. How are those two things connected?
Next, this is put forth as an argument for simpler rules. Is many new players at clubs and events a bad thing? Doesn't that just mean that there's a lot of recruitment to the hobby, which would really be a good thing?
To sum up. There are mostly new players at events because rules are too complex. That's why the rules should be simpler, but they won't be because complex games are more popular and so make more money, and that's why the companies make the games complex.
I can't make sense of it.
EDIT: I get it now. I misread the first paragraph.
The longstanding debate about simple vs complex has been around since the release of Tunnels and Trolls in 1975.
Mr. Pulsipher's piece, due to his editorial limit, isn't easily parsed.
I can understand this point of view: there are simple and quick RPG systems that work pefectly well and that allow you to start playing purposefully in five minutes (lieterally). They would be perfect to involve new players and new game masters, but reality is that there is more money to make in complex games that appeal to hard core fans and scare away possible newcomers that may expand the number of gamers. More money in complex games means more opportunities to hire best creative talents for complex games.
Simple games have to go uphill.
One of the fastest games for new players to learn is WEG/Nocturnal's D6 system... a new player can have a new character in 5 minutes and be given a 5 minute intro, and be effective in play. It's a single resolution mechanic, very consistent (well, until the current edition, which added ads and disads; now in its third ownership).
MLP:Tails of Equestria is actually slower to get players up on, but is easier to play due to comparison only, rather than doing calculations.
It's also a 'generic system' and 5e is not. If you look at just the core Savage Worlds even tossing in fantasy it is really quite straightforward.
D&D is a generic system, but not a universal one. It is focused upon one specific genre - and it's a genre created by D&D, but shared in T&T, C&C, Pathfinder,
It seems to me that "complexity" and "choice" often get conflated in discussions like this.
One of several conflations common in the subject at hand.
Length vs complexity - while corelated, it's not terribly strongly so.
Crunchy vs complex - again, while corelated, it's not a given.
Example: T&T 5e, while 100 pages, is a 3 mechanic system: Spell casting, Combat Rolls, Saving Rolls.
Moldvay D&D basic is 64 pages, has spells, combat rolls, saving rolls, turning undead rolls, thief skill rolls, Morale rolls, and fuzzily included attribute checks and percentage likely checks (those last two on p. b60)...
T&T5 is mechanically simpler, despite being longer.
T&T5 does, however, have much less covered explicitly, but has a very simple, fleble and singular mechanic for non-spell, non-attack, resolution.
Despite that, T&T is also often crunchier - the rules elements are used more than the mechanics are in BX/BE play.
D&D stats in BX/BE require tables to explain their uses.
T&T stats generally don't... except Cha.
D&D stats in BX/BE generate a modifier that makes them less important than class and level most of the time.
T&T stats are used directly, and indirectly, but only spellcasting is actually limited by level. Spell casting, allowed weapons, and allowed armor are class limited, much as they are in D&D.
BX D&D weapons tables have: Name, Damage*, Weight, and an annotation for 2-handed, plus range for missiles.
T&T has Name, Damage, Weight, Req STR, Req DEX, Hands, and, for ranged, range.
*Not that anyone I ever played with used the every weapon does 1d6... but technically, the damage column is optional in BX.
Since every RPG essentially has a Rule Zero (how can they not?) this basically just tells me you think no RPG is really rules light. And that's something I disagree with.
It's not needed if the game is one where player inputs are constrained and only certain items are mechanicalized. The games I've seen that don't have either rotating GMing, or no difficulty levels. A number of games make the rules authority the group vote, and deny GM authority over rules calls.
Well no, I think that's an issue specific to you and your group.
The issue of problem players with rules arguments isn't specific to his group, it's pretty common
Wow. Now there's some seriously different experiences.
I spent most of my 1e and 2e experiences fielding arguments (and sometimes making them) with players. Even in 3e, I saw it frequently, although, that tended to be a single player whose grasp of the mechanics was less accurate than he believed it to be.
But, seriously, I'm stunned to be honest. You've had a much, much more cooperative group(s) than I ever saw. Must be nice.
When I was running games back in '81, Aaron, Sam, myself, and John basically, read Moldvay page B60, right col, as including advice to seek rules concensus with GM only as tiebreaker, not authority.
I consider 'traditional'/'old school' play as being almost entirely dominated by 'the long shadow of E. Gary Gygax.' Although I would not characterize a lot of it as 'how D&D was played in 1973' perhaps, it all very clearly descends from that period and the way people are thinking about things, the terms they use, and what they consider to be the nature and standard processes of an RPG are entirely reflective of that. Again and again we hear statements and analysis that amount to "an RPG (or roleplay) can only be a GM describing scenes to players which (s)he has authored and to which their sole response is limited to those available in-character'. The goal ALWAYS encompasses some flavor of "adjudicate and present situations such that they never deviate from some (how determined?) measure of 'things which could happen without respect to PCs'."
I don't really have good terminology for a lot of these 'Gygaxian assumptions' as you put it, or the process attached to them, because I feel that the analysis served up with them is really pretty weak. The process, as presented by its practitioners, simply doesn't seem to 'hold water' to me. I can use their words sometimes, but I think the connotations they are attempting to convey don't apply at all to the way I think about it.
Reading the various eras of Gygax's advice, a lot of people lean on the AD&D era advice... his earlier advice was less toxic in content, less narrow in scope, and less toxic in presentation than his late 1E advice in dragon, and his advice in the AD&D 1E DMG..
It's not a cohesive whole. Likewise, the OSR movement isn't a cohesive whole. (It's a very loud but not very big minority).
I, myself, don't agree with Mr. Pulsifer's definitions. My own functional definition is "A game¹ where players control one or more characters' attempted² Actions³ in a situation presented either by participant creation or by a module⁴."
¹: an activity with rules. not all games are competitions, and not all play is in/part-of a game.
²: Most RPGs, the rules mechanics, either as called for by the GM or by the rules, determine success; the player declares the attempt only.
³: Note the capital A in Actions - using it to refer to any effort that has a mechanical resolution mechanic.
⁴: This weasel wording is to include the solo modules, as well as GM-less modules for groups, and GM'd modules.
There have been attempts to seriously analyze games and gamers in the context of RPGs... the problem is that those doing it have all too often fallen prey to confirmation bias and/or selection bias. Part of the problem is that RPGs are generally played in private, and those who play aren't objective, and those who don't play generally aren't interested in doing the research.
I'll also note: D&D 5E has had the largest data collection effort - it's deeply mired in selection bias, but it's the best dataset... and D&D 5E was the result. As with all things heavily built upon feedback, it's development narrowed the response window by discouraging dissenters via increasing moves in the majority opinion direction. And that data collection has not ended with publication... WotC has done more market research than most of the rest of the industry.
