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

[TheAlkaizer]

I wonder how many people count options the same as rules?

They're not rules. But I definitely consider options when I evaluate the weight of a game. The rules of Starfinder are not insanely more complicated then 5E. But considering it has two books and half worth of options for weapons, armors, etc; and it has several hundred feats. It absolutely becomes something that can be daunting for players.

Experienced players have to spend a not trivial amount of time to comb through and make choices. Unexperienced players have to do the same thing, but you might have to be with them to explain a few things.

Rules light is a selling point...but all the big selling games have some heft to them.

I think that's a bit of a shortcut, there's alot of things factoring in to this. Big companies will want a product they can work with for years, games with more depth and a bit more complexity lend themselves well to generating additional content over the years. Why would Wizards of the Coast produce a lightweight RPG that's 30 pages thick? It's a one time sell and if they start adding and adding to it, it loses it's not lightweight anymore.

Most years, all the top-selling movies are all reboots or sequels or part of cinematic universes. They're the big selling games of movies. I can still see how a smaller production could use the word original story as its selling points.

 

[Bedrockgames]

TTRPGs are commonly debated about where they lie on a rules crunch spectrum of lite to heavy. For example, is D&D 5e rules medium or rules heavy? Is Fate rules lite or rules medium? Is Runequest rules medium or rules heavy? For purposes of this thread, I'm not actually interested in debating the answers to those questions. Instead, my interest rests in the fundamental stakes of this system of classification from rules lite to rules heavy commonly found in our hobby. Why does this classification matter for some people? What is gained through classifying games along this spectrum? What is at stake if D&D 5e, for example, gets classified as Rules Heavy rather than Rules Medium? Are there incentives for games to be perceived and classified as lighter than they accurately are?

For me it is useful for design purpose and for play purposes because rules light suggests a game where the need to look things up during and to memorize and remember rules is kept to a minimum: the focus is more on keeping things moving, keeping the mechanics of the game fast and easy to manage. Whereas something that is rules heavy is going to be able to prioritize other things like realism, or deep emulation of a genre (and stuff like tactics, making sure character option choices all provide very different outcomes, etc). Not all games are going to fit into this system of categorization. I can easily imagine a game for example that is 'rules heavy' on the character creation side, or on the prep side, but 'light' in the experience of play (and I can imagine systems that seem crunchy but are so well thought out and streamlined that, once you understand them, they feel light. So it isn't going to perfectly work for every game. But that said, I like knowing when I side down to make a game what my goal is in terms of complexity because that does end up guiding a lot of my choices (and this produces very real results for me in terms of making games I want to run). I like to do both. I don't see it as you firmly stick to one camp. My general experience is a tend to cycle.

Rules medium is a lot more vague. I have encountered a lot of rules medium games I would just call rules light or rules heavy. There are some truly rules medium games but I don't find the middle category as useful as I tend to think in terms of being on the lighter or heavier end of the spectrum.

In terms of incentives for being perceived as light or heavy, I think that does matter. Some people don't like rules light gams, and some don't like rules heavy games so they might avoid an RPG that is labeled one or the other (even if it is one they would enjoy if they sat down to try it). But that is true of any label we put on a game (even genre labels have the potential to turn someone off to a game they might enjoy).

 

[Thomas Shey]

TTRPGs are commonly debated about where they lie on a rules crunch spectrum of lite to heavy. For example, is D&D 5e rules medium or rules heavy? Is Fate rules lite or rules medium? Is Runequest rules medium or rules heavy? For purposes of this thread, I'm not actually interested in debating the answers to those questions. Instead, my interest rests in the fundamental stakes of this system of classification from rules lite to rules heavy commonly found in our hobby. Why does this classification matter for some people? What is gained through classifying games along this spectrum? What is at stake if D&D 5e, for example, gets classified as Rules Heavy rather than Rules Medium? Are there incentives for games to be perceived and classified as lighter than they accurately are?

Well, on its simplest level it gives me at least one more descriptor to try and figure out before foraying into it if a game system will suit me. You see this more commonly with people who don't like what they perceive as "rules heavy" systems, but the inverse is the case with me; most games classed as "rules light" feel overly unengaging and/or demanding too much constant attention as a GM to not feel schematic.

But yes, currently I think in a lot of the hobby "rules light" is considered a default virtue, so there's some benefits to having your game described that way.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm sorry, but, a game with a 300+ page book just for the players, never minding what the DM needs, is very, very far from rules medium.

For me, the benchmark of rules medium would be Savage Worlds. Maybe Basic/Expert D&D I suppose. Star Frontiers maybe?

But any hardcover version of D&D? Not even remotely. Sure, it's not HERO or Harn but, it's still an incredibly crunchy system.

You can run into a problem here where how complex people see a rules set as being turns in part on what they focus on.

This is particularly noticeable when it comes to character creation. A game like the Hero System has a very detailed process for generating characters (especially those with any sort of paranormal abilities), but once you've got the principals down, its not hard to remember most of it because its based on a limited number of effects written as much as possible to a common metric. On the other hand, many latter day incarnations of D&D have the individual process pretty simple, but the components used are all bespoke and as such almost no one is going to remember them all, and in many cases knowing how one works won't tell you much about the next one.

Similar things can apply to in-play elements.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm not sure that this is right. The difference between the two could come out in the way fictional positioning is used, both as an input into action resolution and as an element of the outcomes of action resolution.

You can, but then how it comes out is fundamentally arbitrary and largely dependent on how well the GM manages it for the most part.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well, on its simplest level it gives me at least one more descriptor to try and figure out before foraying into it if a game system will suit me. You see this more commonly with people who don't like what they perceive as "rules heavy" systems, but the inverse is the case with me; most games classed as "rules light" feel overly unengaging and/or demanding too much constant attention as a GM to not feel schematic.

But yes, currently I think in a lot of the hobby "rules light" is considered a default virtue, so there's some benefits to having your game described that way.

I encounter a lot of people who do not want rules light. The chief complaint I hear, especially if the rules light system emphasizes rulings (which many tend to), is they feel like the designer is making them do the design work. I like rules light, but can appreciate lighter systems may not feel fleshed out enough for someone who wants something more crunchy.

 

[aramis erak]

I encounter a lot of people who do not want rules light. The chief complaint I hear, especially if the rules light system emphasizes rulings (which many tend to), is they feel like the designer is making them do the design work. I like rules light, but can appreciate lighter systems may not feel fleshed out enough for someone who wants something more crunchy.

It doesn't help that many rules-light games lack any developed setting, so the GM is often forced to do worldbuilding as well as rulings on the fly. The phrase, "There's no «there» there," is often used as a dismissive of rules light. Advocates of settingless rules super-light generally cite the ability to use rulings and player cooperation to use them in any genre...

I, myself, want rules and setting to support each other - this makes multi-genre rulesets of pretty limited usefulness to me, and most rules light games are either genre engines or truly generic, but there are some great exceptions; GW's Judge Dredd comes to mind, rich on setting, very light rules, and, provided you have the character sheets with all the gear on them, a great (but long OOP) one-shot game.

 

[pemerton]

I'm not sure that this is right. The difference between the two could come out in the way fictional positioning is used, both as an input into action resolution and as an element of the outcomes of action resolution.

You can, but then how it comes out is fundamentally arbitrary and largely dependent on how well the GM manages it for the most part.

In many rules-light systems players can define aspects / effects / attributes / tags which have a mechanical effect, but the details of how you interact is mechanically loose and restricted by the fiction. So to model a complex system, you use simple rules but require the players (including the GM) to have a complex shared model of the genre in their head and use it to adjudicate fiction. Fortunately, human beings are well designed for exactly that task.

I agree with GrahamWills here. Extrapolation from fiction is not fundamentally arbitrary. Of course the outcome will vary from table to table, and even from occasion to occasion at the same table, but that doesn't make it arbitrary.

 

[payn]

It doesn't help that many rules-light games lack any developed setting, so the GM is often forced to do worldbuilding as well as rulings on the fly. The phrase, "There's no «there» there," is often used as a dismissive of rules light. Advocates of settingless rules super-light generally cite the ability to use rulings and player cooperation to use them in any genre...

I, myself, want rules and setting to support each other - this makes multi-genre rulesets of pretty limited usefulness to me, and most rules light games are either genre engines or truly generic, but there are some great exceptions; GW's Judge Dredd comes to mind, rich on setting, very light rules, and, provided you have the character sheets with all the gear on them, a great (but long OOP) one-shot game.

Folks make it seem like filling in the blanks for rules lite systems is a big chore. I don't get this, I find the rulings just flow and nobody really cares about it because any random ruling is very unlikely to maim, kill, or otherwise wreck a character. I thought my long history with rules heavy games and taste for simulation would sour rules lite games for me, instead I find they play effortlessly in comparison. I do get that sometimes you want heavy rules for the type of game you aim to play, but other times ditching all the baggage leads to great game. There is a place for each, they don't have to provide the exact same experience.

I do get what you are saying about rules matching setting material. I dont like generic systems, typically, because they tend to feel homogenized between settings and styles. Rules light systems are pretty easy to make and tailor which gives them an edge in this department in my opinion.

 

[pemerton]

I wonder how many people count options the same as rules? Is D&D lighter if there are only 36 spells and 4 weapons? Does a light or medium game lose that status when the first splat book comes out?

The whole idea of options to me pushes against "rules light", because it implies there are aspects of the game - either PC build or action resolution - that have enough variability in their input that it makes sense to have "options" for them.

The most rules light game I play regularly is Prince Valiant. And it has no real space to inject "options".