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

[AbdulAlhazred]

IDK, despite some less than great design, I still love games from the 60,70,80's. There is an element that makes a game come alive that isnt tangible. You can make the best designed game possible, but if it doesn't give the expected experience, folks are not going to like it. You can also keep the feel and brand while designing a sound game. You dont have to jettison what came before or go left field to make things better.

Nor do you have to be stuck with what some random guy came up with in 197x. You are describing NOSTALGIA, and moreover it is YOUR NOSTALGIA and calling it a general principle that should be applied to everyone. Take a step back, see the bigger picture. I was THERE in the mid 1970's and was one of the first people who experienced D&D as a commercial product. It is crude, haphazard, and only a rough approximation of what RPGs are today. It also represents merely one small take, a mere glimpse of a vast territory.

Likewise other seminal games, Traveller, T&T, En Garde!, Bunnies & Burrows (the first skill system!), Metamorphosis Alpha, Boot Hill, etc. are all first cuts at a genre (well, T&T might not be quite that, but it was still pretty cool and had a lot of influence on later games). Of course those games are somewhat 'special' in the sense that the first vision of a whole genre is always going to form a lens through which all else is seen, to an extent. That doesn't make it the bestest and onliest. Neither does the 1st edition of a game necessarily make it the best edition.

The world moves on. We've learned things far beyond what E. Gary Gygax conceived of. Do you think he wanted people looting the same old B2 dungeon over and over again forever, and nothing else? I strongly doubt it. Maybe he was a bit chaffed by some of what came after his contribution, but all the people that worked on creating the RPG hobby in the early days would be/were/are thrilled that it is what it is today, evolving and growing and vital, not some static tradition that follows your nostalgia.

 

[payn]

Nor do you have to be stuck with what some random guy came up with in 197x. You are describing NOSTALGIA, and moreover it is YOUR NOSTALGIA and calling it a general principle that should be applied to everyone. Take a step back, see the bigger picture. I was THERE in the mid 1970's and was one of the first people who experienced D&D as a commercial product. It is crude, haphazard, and only a rough approximation of what RPGs are today. It also represents merely one small take, a mere glimpse of a vast territory.

Likewise other seminal games, Traveller, T&T, En Garde!, Bunnies & Burrows (the first skill system!), Metamorphosis Alpha, Boot Hill, etc. are all first cuts at a genre (well, T&T might not be quite that, but it was still pretty cool and had a lot of influence on later games). Of course those games are somewhat 'special' in the sense that the first vision of a whole genre is always going to form a lens through which all else is seen, to an extent. That doesn't make it the bestest and onliest. Neither does the 1st edition of a game necessarily make it the best edition.

The world moves on. We've learned things far beyond what E. Gary Gygax conceived of. Do you think he wanted people looting the same old B2 dungeon over and over again forever, and nothing else? I strongly doubt it. Maybe he was a bit chaffed by some of what came after his contribution, but all the people that worked on creating the RPG hobby in the early days would be/were/are thrilled that it is what it is today, evolving and growing and vital, not some static tradition that follows your nostalgia.

Thats a strawman and you know it. I never said the game cant change, or needs to sit with Gygax. My point was that design isnt the only factor that needs to be considered in a legacy game. That there is also a subjective side of design that isnt overridden by mechanics alone.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Thats a strawman and you know it. I never said the game cant change, or needs to sit with Gygax. My point was that design isnt the only factor that needs to be considered in a legacy game. That there is also a subjective side of design that isnt overridden by mechanics alone.

Lets bury the whole "logical fallacy talk", we have different opinions and viewpoints. I'm not making a strawman or anything like that, I'm just pointing out what I see. Of course my interpretation of what you are saying may differ from yours, but that doesn't make either one of us guilty of anything more than less than 100% effective communication.

So, yes, its fine to say that you PREFER a version of, say, D&D, that hews closer to whichever version you consider 'canonical'. Nobody here, surely not me, is going to insult anyone's preferences. I prefer a different version of it, neither is right or wrong, and I don't think creative people are beholden to the specific sentiments of one audience over another. Commercial considerations may dictate with a product as big as D&D what gets published of course.

Other than that, what would be the point of new editions of things if they don't change anything, if they don't grow the concept and go on to new stuff? You can keep playing 1e D&D, or 3.5e D&D, there is nothing threatening about, say 4e D&D to that. It just represents someone else's preferences. I can also tell you that in MY mind, it was pretty conscious of its roots, paid a lot of homage to them, and produced a lot of the good parts of older edition play.

Now, maybe some rehashes of things are worse than the original. Its certainly no law that everything is improved when it is revisited. Just that its not an objective measurement. Some people probably love OWoD (ugh!) and others love the current iteration, and maybe there's disagreements. Thats cool.

 

[payn]

Lets bury the whole "logical fallacy talk", we have different opinions and viewpoints. I'm not making a strawman or anything like that, I'm just pointing out what I see. Of course my interpretation of what you are saying may differ from yours, but that doesn't make either one of us guilty of anything more than less than 100% effective communication.

So, yes, its fine to say that you PREFER a version of, say, D&D, that hews closer to whichever version you consider 'canonical'. Nobody here, surely not me, is going to insult anyone's preferences. I prefer a different version of it, neither is right or wrong, and I don't think creative people are beholden to the specific sentiments of one audience over another. Commercial considerations may dictate with a product as big as D&D what gets published of course.

Other than that, what would be the point of new editions of things if they don't change anything, if they don't grow the concept and go on to new stuff? You can keep playing 1e D&D, or 3.5e D&D, there is nothing threatening about, say 4e D&D to that. It just represents someone else's preferences. I can also tell you that in MY mind, it was pretty conscious of its roots, paid a lot of homage to them, and produced a lot of the good parts of older edition play.

Now, maybe some rehashes of things are worse than the original. Its certainly no law that everything is improved when it is revisited. Just that its not an objective measurement. Some people probably love OWoD (ugh!) and others love the current iteration, and maybe there's disagreements. Thats cool.

You made assumptions about what I was saying, and I dont appreciate it. You can discuss ideas and opinions without attributing assumptions onto other folks. You are not even discussing what I was addressing with Campbell, but airing out a series of complaints at my expense. Please dont do this.

 

[Campbell]

I think we are all better off that if a group wants to play Vampire it now gets to choose between Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition, Requiem Second Edition, and Masquerade Fifth Edition. Having 3 valid entry points that provide different play experiences is a net good for our greater community. I think it's great that different groups play Exalted Second Edition, Exalted Third Edition, and Exalted Essence. Having overall more choice in the hobby is a good thing.

I am not personally a fan of Exalted Essence, but I am glad it exists for the people who want it.

I think the industry is at it's best when creative people are allowed to be creative.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Comparing a RPG to a power tool is unhelpful. RPGs don't actually pose any risks (unless you believe the mid-80s hype).

No. The fact they don't create physical risk does not mean they don't pose risks. They can absolutely be disruptive to a given groups harmony if they don't realize what they're getting into. That shouldn't even be controversial.

 

[Thomas Shey]

OK, but if that's an obligation of RPG designers, then it is one that ALL OF THEM should be held to. I won't accept a judgment that one set of people's ideas of how to play are privileged and can simply be assumed, that's all.

Privileged, no. But assumed? Sorry, can't follow you there. Some things I think in general can be assumed as a default. Among other things, some of them have harmless failure states and some don't. If you assume a gaming group is prone to some disharmony and a group isn't, at worst you have some backstops that aren't necessary and can be ignored, but little harm will be done. If the opposite is true you're likely to produce a genuinely unpleasant experience. Similar things apply in other areas.

Again, I have no problem with the idea that it is a good idea to educate your audience. I'm just trying to understand if you really mean to say that you consider games that you would want to play to be somehow privileged.

What in the world makes you assume I'm using myself as the standard here? I like and have problems with things that are by no means apparently typical.

OK, I interpret that mean "Yes, all games should do this, not just ones I don't consider mainstream." Sorry if this seems like a nitpick, but fans of certain RPGs often don't seem to see how they appear to project an attitude that seems to make all other forms of RPG 2nd class.

It isn't a mainstream/non-mainstream issue per se, at least. Unless your concept of mainstream is very narrow.

It relates to my concern very much, because it PERFECTLY illustrates the absolute arrogance associated with a large segment of RPG fandom which seems to consider itself the absolute arbiter of what is acceptable, mainstream, etc. That poster simply dismissed not even a genre or classification of RPGs, but essentially everything not produced by those he seems to favor as irrelevant trash with a metaphorical wave of the hand.

If its who I assume it is, he tends to do this with everything that doesn't fit his own tastes. My calling him on it is probably what got me ignored (it had to be at his end since I have a grand total of two people ignored).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I just think that the idea that there's some ultra-dominant idea about what RPGs are and how they are played is dubious at best.

To clarify, I'm also less talking about play styles than I am about group dynamics. They aren't entirely unrelated, but they don't have a one to one correspondence (some playstyles are impractical for some group dynamics, but the playstyle isn't the issue per se).

I can give an example if I'm being overly muddy here.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Warning: "PbtA games will severely impair your power as a GM to railroad players through curated adventures. Also, there are no d20s or GM rolls. Advise with caution."

I'd phrase it more as "If your players are really used to a strong line of distinction between in-character and out-of-character actions, and expect the latter to be GM actions, you may run into some problems here." I realize its common to assume this is just an authoritarian GM thing, but I've hit a number of people who really do actively dislike doing so.

This doesn't apply just to PbtA, either. Depending on how sharp the edge is with such people it can apply to things as simple as the presence of a metacurrency, if the game is heavily wrapped around it.

(Though the "no GM rolls" thing can actively put some people at that end off for purely esthetic reasons; I've seen a number of people comment on it in Cypher threads).

 

[Thomas Shey]

You seemed to say that such changes were so common that you didn't even like to play 5e outside your usual playgroup. Is it a lot moreso than other games? (Are there any games on here we haven't seen some disagreements over?) So I was curious what the most common few seemed to be for 5e in your opinion. In part, because I'm wondering if I do some RAW/RAI breaking when I DM. I'll go looking around on my own later when I get time (and start a thread about it if it proves to be really scattered).

This is purely speculative and from a limited observation, but at least in the past D&D has seemed to attract more house rules than is necessarily the case in more general cases. This may be an issue of heritage game culture as much as anything else (as has been noted, OD&D games sprouted houserules like untended lawns spout weeds).