What is the downside to simple systems?

[Hussar]

Oh, hey, I totally agree Bagpuss.

But, OTOH, we see much wailing and gnashing of teeth by DM's who apparently cannot make decisions for their own table. People bitched about prone snakes for YEARS. So, again apparently, there is some problem with simple systems where some DM's need a lot more hand holding from the rules in order to run their game.

 

[GMMichael]

What do you think about a game like Alternacy that has No attributes or skills, but sixteen talents?

The link didn't seem useful, but I'm all for streamlining the characters/system. Characters don't need ability scores if there's a different way to explain how well they do things. The trick in an RPG - characters can do LOTS of things. So you either need lots of specific rules, or fewer general rules.

What about this system:
1) Characters can either jump vertically 5 feet, or horizontally 10 feet.
2) They can run forward or backward, at a rate of 10 feet per second.
3) Characters can automatically grab swinging vines.
4) Characters have one skill: spatial reasoning.
5) Whenever a character's placement is important, the player rolls 1d10, and adds his spatial reasoning score.
6) When the above roll results in 6 or more, the character has landed or jumped safely.
7) When the character touches a scorpion, alligator, or campfire, he dies.
8) When the character touches a gold bar, silver bar, or diamond ring, he collects it freely and without encumbrance.
9) A dead character begins the game at the beginning of the scene, but can only do so twice.

Fun game - but only toddlers can play it for more than a day. Us older folk require more rules. Or broader rules. But how many?

It also remains consistent if the GM changes or you play at a convention, the rulings don't change with each GM.

Easily the best reason for more rules and tables. Do whatever you want at your home table. But if you're WOTC, and you need your game to be played more or less the same across conventions and adventure paths, you'd better lay down the law.

Textbook example - knocking something prone in 3e or 4e. How do you knock a gelatinous cube prone? The "knocking someone prone" rules are pretty simple in either edition. But, because you have fairly simple, universal rules, there are those out there who refuse to step back from the mechanics and make rulings that make sense to them. The rules say that you knock X prone, therefore you ALWAYS knock X prone and it has Y effect. And, again apparently, there are many DM's/GM's out there who are not willing to adjudicate differently.

This makes me think of Degrees of Success systems. Want to knock a cube prone? Make an attack. If you have enough Degrees of Success (or you've sufficiently beaten your opponent's roll), you succeed. It might not be in the rules, but since the character has shown his prowess, why not give an advantage?

 

[Hussar]

Easily the best reason for more rules and tables. Do whatever you want at your home table. But if you're WOTC, and you need your game to be played more or less the same across conventions and adventure paths, you'd better lay down the law.

To be fair though, home rules and convention rules are completely different beasts.

But, look at Dread. There's an incredibly simple game that works excellently at home and at conventions.

 

[Bagpuss]

Dread doesn't really handle campaign play particularly well though.

 

[Hussar]

That's true enough.

Actually, that's probably the biggest downside to lighter systems. They lack a lot of the bells and whistles to keep a longer campaign going. I'm not sure if that's inherent to the system or not, but, it's certainly been my experience. I think possibly because lighter systems tend to be a lot more focused. With that greater focus comes a problem trying to keep a broader campaign going.

 

[Dethklok]

I haven't experienced that. It may be true, but I haven't seen it. What do the bells and whistles do that the simpler rules can't do?

And as a separate question, might not the bells and whistles be added later on, in the form of supplements and optional rules? A lot of video games use increasing complexity as a way of teaching people how to play, and BECMI started quite simple before getting big later on. I'd imagine the same could work for any game.

 

[Hussar]

I haven't experienced that. It may be true, but I haven't seen it. What do the bells and whistles do that the simpler rules can't do?

And as a separate question, might not the bells and whistles be added later on, in the form of supplements and optional rules? A lot of video games use increasing complexity as a way of teaching people how to play, and BECMI started quite simple before getting big later on. I'd imagine the same could work for any game.

I think the biggest difference between lighter and heavier games is that heavier games offer a number of mechanical options at all points of the character's career. In a light game, your character doesn't really change a whole lot from chargen to retirement.

To be fair though, I wouldn't peg BECMI as a rules light game. You're looking, overall, at a few hundred pages of rules, and even with Basic/Expert, you've still got over a hundred pages of rules. Granted, not all of that is mechanics, but, even Basic/Expert is still pretty crunchy. But, the point is, your character mechanically changes quite a lot over the course of a longer campaign. Even something as simple as a Basic/Expert fighter changes quite a lot. He goes from a one hit dead mook, to something that can stand toe to toe with dragons and win. Never minding things like followers and the like. ((I forget if you got followers in Basic/Expert - is that an AD&D thing?))

 

[nnms]

I beleive the followers are found here: BECMI

I think the easiest approach for transitioning a simple system into a more complex one is exception based design. You design a simple and tight core rules set and then anything you want to accomplish beyond that is handled by the principle of specific text trumping the general. So if normally you can only move or attack in a given combat round, you can have a charge maneuver that breaks that rule.

It allows for pretty much anything in terms of bells and whistles to keep system-enjoying players interested for a longer campaign, but doesn't require the complexity to all be there front loaded into the system.

 

[Bagpuss]

I think the easiest approach for transitioning a simple system into a more complex one is exception based design. You design a simple and tight core rules set and then anything you want to accomplish beyond that is handled by the principle of specific text trumping the general.

Agreed however you need to be careful as to how many exceptions there are, how frequently they are used and where that information about the exception is stored.

If you consider D&D 3rd (and onward) is exception based the are areas where that works and other areas where I don't feel it does.

Charge for example is used frequently and is a simple exception that most people can remember. There it worked well.

Grappling is neither simple or used that often, so when it comes up it usually means people have to refer to the rulebook and then it takes a long time to relearn and apply and so often players wouldn't try to grapple because it would just slow the game right down.

Then there are Feats, countless exceptions, but thankfully for most part the exception is either built into the character like Weapon Focus, or written on the character sheet. They work reasonable well in that instance.

But then you have Feats for Monsters and NPCs and DM's running published adventures, there the Feats are only usually only referred to by name and since the DM is only using that monster of NPC once in a blue moon they need to look those feats up (they could be spread across several sources). They don't work so well in that instance.

Exception based design is a nice idea, but you need to think carefully about the exceptions you introduce and how they are handled.

4th Ed did at least try to keep any uncommon exceptions listed in the stat block or on the character sheet and power descriptions.

 

[nnms]

So a simple system that wants to use exception based design needs to follow a few principles. Like don't make anything so complicated you have to look it up during play every time you use it. Another good one is to use succinct text whereever possible so the entire exception can appear in a sentence or two you can put on your character sheet. Or you can use play aids like cards in the Warmachine/Hordes miniature game.

If you opt to instead go with subsystems rather than exceptions, you need to either learn the entire new subsystem for each thing it covers or be willing to look it up every time.