The Stakes of Classifying Games as Rules Lite, Medium, or Heavy?

[Hussar]

People often mistake rules absent as rules light.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's possible to be pretty rules-lite but not system free. Many years ago the relevant games hadn't been invented yet - other than, maybe, Prince Valiant - but now they have.

I'm entirely aware, I still have little reason to not expect the same issues to progressively crop up as the rules light degree increases.

 

[Umbran]

If that's offensive, so be it.

So, for you, "But it is TEH TRVTH!!!1!," is an excuse for treating people poorly. Noted. Please be aware that the board rules do not agree with that sentiment.

Next time, I'll just go to red text and such.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I should add that they generally seem to know they're being deceptive because their reactions to it being suggested they're being deceptive are typically either to admit they were stretching the truth or become very defensive in that sort of "Well technically..." way. I once saw someone basically try to suggest D&D wasn't relatively rules-heavy by talking about Rolemaster for god's sake. (As an aside I'd say 5E was at the shallow end of rules-heavy - it's certainly not light or medium - 4E likewise, 3.XE was unquestionably rules-heavy, as was PF1).

I would agree with anyone saying "rules-medium" isn't very useful. Games are either rules-light, rules-heavy or not really either but I'd strongly suggest the vast majority of games are one or the other (light or heavy). CoC is the only one that immediately springs to mind as being in the middle.

This is the post that prompted me to create a spinoff thread asking what rules medium even is. I know I have a full working definition when I use it for what to me qualifies as rules medium, and I also know that my definition is part-advocacy of things I like seeing.

• A rules medium game isn't rules light because there are emergent interactions that mean you sometimes have to think about the consequences in non-obvious ways.
• A rules medium game isn't rules heavy because you can leave the rulebooks at home and rely on the character sheets/NPC statblocks and maybe a handout or two and/or a DM screen and basically never stop to look anything up in the rulebook while playing full RAW. And yes, this does reward prep.

And yes, a big part of the second half is the character sheets and statblocks should contain all the rules for things like spells so we don't need to stop the game to look them up in the PHB.

To pick obvious examples:

• Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, or other PBTA games fit very neatly here. There are definite non-obvious interactions and you need a couple of lookup sheets; they aren't rules light but it's almost impossible to call them rules heavy.
• Marvel Heroic Roleplaying likewise. It's far too fiddly to be rules light, but character sheets are designed to fit on single sides of A5. (Its successor game in the Sentinels Comics RPG likewise)
• AD&D 1e is in no way rules medium. How many rules are there in the 1e DMG for odd things like helmets?
• D&D 4e is at the heavy end of rules medium. Those monster statblocks and DMG p42 cover a lot and all the rules are on the character sheets/in the power cards.
• D&D 5e is annoyingly close to rules medium. It clearly isn't rules light. As for rules heavy, too much time is spent looking up spells, both because the players don't take copies and because the monsters with spells have pointers to other rulebooks (which is something that they've shown changing in the future).

And what are the stakes? As mentioned, this is me advocating for a level of game design I consider good. Not much to look up but some mechanical heft and emergent complexity.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So, for you, "But it is TEH TRVTH!!!1!," is an excuse for treating people poorly. Noted. Please be aware that the board rules do not agree with that sentiment.

Next time, I'll just go to red text and such.

I suspect if calling people out when they do a clear self inflicted wound ("The rule is bad but we won't fix it or even have an agreement to work around it") is your concept of "treating people poorly" that's going to happen anyway. Frankly it doesn't seem consistent with having any critique of anyone's play methodology at all.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is the post that prompted me to create a spinoff thread asking what rules medium even is. I know I have a full working definition when I use it for what to me qualifies as rules medium, and I also know that my definition is part-advocacy of things I like seeing.

I suspect you're using both rules-light and rules-heavy with a much more rigorous set of lines of demarcation than the vast majority of people do, who probably use the classic "I know it when I see it" and don't go a step further.

Edit: Rereading that, I didn't give it quite the attention it deserved.

I think the problem with your definition of rules medium is that it lets off the hook any game that has a coherent and easily memorized basic mechanic, and doesn't get into much in the way of situational special-casing, but has enormous amounts of special casing in character abilities. It would make D&D4e "lighter" that traditional RuneQuest for example (because the latter did have some situational special casing here and there) even though about all you needed with most characters was their rather short spell lists (and most of those were easily abbreviated) on the character sheet, whereas D&D4 characters as the progressed accrued a potentially large number of special case abilities where every one would be different.

Basically, if I need (as I did) a four page character sheet to keep track of my character at the end, I'm not sure that meaningfully more light than a game where most of the character fits on a one or two page sheet but I occasionally need to look things up under some circumstances.

 

[GrahamWills]

Again, I'm perfectly willing to have someone tell me a reason that you'd just accept a bad rule and move on. I've yet to see anyone present one.

Tons of reasons. here are a few:

• Humility: Just because I think it's a bad rule, doesn't mean it actually is. When I change a "bad" rule I am saying "I am a better game designer than this guy who has is lead designer for a major RPG system and has decades of experience". That's a pretty strong statement and so I often think "well, this isn't great, but if Rob Heinsoo can't think of anything better, I guess I'll go with it".
• Tooling: If I'm using a VTT or char gen app (hello 4E!) it will often be very hard or impossible to modify.
• Embeddedness: Some rules are just too embedded in the system to be changeable. Fixing them means fundamental changes to the system.
• Consistency: My players play in multiple games and in Living Campaigns. Dealing with different rules for different GMs is a pain for them. If I'm running a Pathfinder module, it is generally a terrible idea to turn up with a set of rules you are going to ignore / change / add.
• Fun: Stopping a game to work out a better rule is not fun to me and my group. Or most groups I've been in. So even if we decided we really needed to change a rule, we will always accept it and move on at least temporarily.

To change a rule you therefore need -- at a minimum:

1. To be confident you are better at designing this part of the game than the original designer
2. This rule not to be part of your game tools or applications
3. It's not a fundamental part of the system
4. You and you are players are not playing the same system with other people
5. You are doing this between sessions

Rules-heavy games are more likely to have digital support and apps that make tweaking hard and the quadratic number of interactions between rules means that if you change one rule, you need to consider all the interactions that it will allow, so you are doomed if it's a central rule, and even if it's not there is a great chance you overlooked that combination of rules that means your "fix to a bad rule" has led to a worse rule. If you are playing a popular game like D&D unless you are a cloistered group of gamers, it's almost certainly better to stick with the bad rule than require players to have a folder of "Graham's Tweaks", "Thomas's Tweaks" etc and then get continually irritated trying to remember which tweak is for which game master.

Which is probably why another thread I am reading says that rule tweaks and home brewing is a red flag for the majority of people when they read campaign descriptions!

 

[Thomas Shey]

Tons of reasons. here are a few:

• Humility: Just because I think it's a bad rule, doesn't mean it actually is. When I change a "bad" rule I am saying "I am a better game designer than this guy who has is lead designer for a major RPG system and has decades of experience". That's a pretty strong statement and so I often think "well, this isn't great, but if Rob Heinsoo can't think of anything better, I guess I'll go with it".

Note in the example I responded to, the GM (and presumably the players) all acknowledged it was dumb. In fact, in a later post the poster gave an example of having a gentleman's agreement to not engage with a similar thing. So this isn't a case of a marginal rule; this is a case of someone with a group that actively agrees the rule is bad. If they're still tolerating it for the reason you say at that point they've fallen into the trap of accepting authority over everything else, and that's not a good look.

• Tooling: If I'm using a VTT or char gen app (hello 4E!) it will often be very hard or impossible to modify.

I'll give a pass on character gen problems under those circumstances, though if there's many of them, at some point that's a good reason to stop using said app. A character gen program that premits no modificiation of its output is poorly designed.

• Embeddedness: Some rules are just too embedded in the system to be changeable. Fixing them means fundamental changes to the system.

At some point, if you seriously think the rule is bad enough, that's even more reason to change it, not less. If you seriously aren't up to changing the rule and its that bad and that pervasive, why are you still using that system?

• Consistency: My players play in multiple games and in Living Campaigns. Dealing with different rules for different GMs is a pain for them. If I'm running a Pathfinder module, it is generally a terrible idea to turn up with a set of rules you are going to ignore / change / add.

Afraid this one I just flat out don't buy. People have always played with multiple GMs using a same game; that never stopped anyone from doing house rules before, don't see why it should now.

• Fun: Stopping a game to work out a better rule is not fun to me and my group. Or most groups I've been in. So even if we decided we really needed to change a rule, we will always accept it and move on at least temporarily.

Never said it had to be done on the fly, but again, in the original context this was apparently a known issue that was just being tolerated. "We'll fix this later, but for now let's move on" is a different thing from "Its bad, but what are you gonna do?"

To change a rule you therefore need -- at a minimum:

1. To be confident you are better at designing this part of the game than the original designer

And if you genuinely think a rule is bad, you should be. Otherwise its either not that bad or you think its conceptually intractable.

1. This rule not to be part of your game tools or applications

More accurately, its part of it in a place that can't be worked around. I use plenty of game tools. I still haven't lost the ability to roll a die if needed or have a player do so.

1. It's not a fundamental part of the system

Again, if its that bad a rule, and a fundamental part of the system, why are you using that system?

1. You and you are players are not playing the same system with other people

Not even close to a good enough reason (if, again, the rule is that bad).

1. You are doing this between sessions

Generally granted. But if its a one-off issue, its usually not that big a deal in the first place.

Rules-heavy games are more likely to have digital support and apps that make tweaking hard and the quadratic number of interactions between rules means that if you change one rule, you need to consider all the interactions that it will allow, so you are doomed if it's a central rule, and even if it's not there is a great chance you overlooked that combination of rules that means your "fix to a bad rule" has led to a worse rule. If you are playing a popular game like D&D unless you are a cloistered group of gamers, it's almost certainly better to stick with the bad rule than require players to have a folder of "Graham's Tweaks", "Thomas's Tweaks" etc and then get continually irritated trying to remember which tweak is for which game master.

I simply disagree this latter is true. Again, I've seen groups playing multiple incarnations of the same system many times over the years with different houserules and yet somehow they got by.

Rules interactions problems has some legitimacy, but I have to question if you're someone is so averse to trusting their understanding here if they really understand the rules they're using in the first place.

Which is probably why another thread I am reading says that rule tweaks and home brewing is a red flag for the majority of people when they read campaign descriptions!

This must be a D&D-sphere thing. While there's obviously some diminishing returns when house rules get too extensive, I've never seen people balk just because someone is using houserules in a game anywhere else. And frankly, even in D&D it was more the rule than the exception for a good part of the hobby (one of the things that always makes it amusing talking to people about AD&D1 is the number of people who think they played by the book when they'd simply forgotten how many house rules they used...)

 

[Neonchameleon]

Again, I'm perfectly willing to have someone tell me a reason that you'd just accept a bad rule and move on (note, again, that as I mentioned "we have a gentleman's agreement not to press on this problem" is not just accepting it from where I sit, though I don't think its ideal). I've yet to see anyone present one. If that's offensive, so be it.

Being a GM takes many skills as it is. Being a game designer should not be added to the list; it's not that some of us aren't but we shouldn't have to be. And when I buy a game a significant part of what I'm paying for is (a) design expertise and (b) playtesting.

This means that when I see a rule that doesn't look good my first thought isn't "This is wrong. I should immediately leap in and fix it" but "I wonder why it's there". If it turns out it was actually a bad rule (and not all rules I have initially identified as bad were; obvious D&D examples are XP for GP and wandering monster checks (the latter of which mostly makes sense in the context of the former)) I am quite capable of fixing it - but if it's an important rule it makes me want a refund because the expertise I have quite literally paid good money for when I bought the game has failed. (And if it's a minor rule don't sweat the small stuff).

This is different from taking a game and hacking it of course.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Being a GM takes many skills as it is. Being a game designer should not be added to the list; it's not that some of us aren't but we shouldn't have to be. And when I buy a game a significant part of what I'm paying for is (a) design expertise and (b) playtesting.

That's a good reason not to like having to deal with a bad rule. Its not a good reason not to deal with it. The latter is a choice, not an obligation.

This means that when I see a rule that doesn't look good my first thought isn't "This is wrong. I should immediately leap in and fix it" but "I wonder why it's there". If it turns out it was actually a bad rule (and not all rules I have initially identified as bad were; obvious D&D examples are XP for GP and wandering monster checks (the latter of which mostly makes sense in the context of the former)) I am quite capable of fixing it - but if it's an important rule it makes me want a refund because the expertise I have quite literally paid good money for when I bought the game has failed. (And if it's a minor rule don't sweat the small stuff).

All reasonable. But again, there's a big difference between these and "We all know this rule is dumb but we're just accepting it." There are any number of responses to that but (barring your caveat about not sweating the small stuff), ignoring it while being put off about it is not a good one. Its letting the door repeatedly hit you in the foot because you can't be bothered to fix that (and the fact the builder made a mistake in the first place is not a reason not to). Questioning why the hell you bought a game with that bad a rule is also perfectly legit, but at that point I again have to question why you're still playing the game (there can be network externality based reasons for that, but again, that's not a case that should occur if everyone is having a problem with the rule).

This is different from taking a game and hacking it of course.

Not--really? Many of the same issues can apply (or not). If you're not feeling competent to fix a broken bit, why is changing that bit for your own purposes going to be any safer? It still can have unpredictable knock-on effects (and this is even true with relatively light games).

Its the idea that "because a rule is written, there's no choice but to accept it" but somehow the same person can feel okay about making a ruling on the fly that I find bizarre. Nothing about a rules-heavy system requires you to just sit and take what it dishes when it lays an egg, and nothing about making up a rule on the fly says that rule will somehow be better. Its just a construction that makes no sense: either you're competent to rework a rule at need or you're not. If you're not your on-the-fly choices aren't going to intrinsically be any better.

This does not mean that someone who prefers a rules-light approach should mend their ways and go to a heavier one. But the idea that somehow a situation where you have to make rules on the fly is going to be intrinsically better than having an extent one, or that the latter somehow binds you to it even if it makes no sense doesn't hold water. It comes down to whether you find the consistency and ability to predict what a rules heavy game gives your more or less valuable than the flexibility and room to remove parts of output from the direct rules that a rules light game does more valuable. And those cannot be but judgment calls based on a combination of taste and experience.