When is Rules Lite Too Lite?

[Elvish Lore]

Anyone else experience this kind of thing with a rules lite game?

A lot. And I try out plenty of rules-lite games and give them a fair chance. It's just me and my preferences (and those of my various groups). Some people love them, I just get bored after a bit. Sometimes it takes a number of sessions... sometimes I can tell I'm bored in the middle of a one shot. I'm not slamming rules light games, I just find that I want mechanical levers/buttons to push and pull and press.

It's probably why I won't ultimately buy Legend in the Mist core rules. I think I'd play it a couple times - maybe, maybe 5 sessions total -- and just get bored with the lack of mechanical depth. And games are too expensive nowadays for me to experiment much with large, print books.

 

[overgeeked]

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything in 5e that says ruling over rules. Maybe Mearls or somebody else talking about it but those are in the early days (2014 ish) before it grew into the make a bloated mess it is now.

If you mean that exact phrase, then no. If you are in any way flexible, then yes.

"And as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them." --2014 DMG, p4.

"The D&D rules help you and the other players have a good time, but the rules aren't in charge. You're the DM, and you are in charge of the game." --2014 DMG, p4.

"Adjudicate the Rules. You oversee how the group uses the game's rules, making sure the rules serve the group's fun." --2024 PHB, p7.

"Referee. When it's not clear what ought to happen next, the DM decides how to apply the rules." --2024 DMG, p5.

 

[Maxperson]

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything in 5e that says ruling over rules. Maybe Mearls or somebody else talking about it but those are in the early days (2014 ish) before it grew into the make a bloated mess it is now.

Multiple 5e game designers have been quoted as saying that it was a guiding principle for designing 5e, and that hasn't changed with the bloat. The bloat still involves rules that are vague and/or incomplete, which is what fuels the rulings over the rules.

DMs can't play the game exactly as written, because what is written leave a lot of holes in the game for the DM to rule on, and what isn't a hole, is often able to be interpreted in multiple ways.

 

[Whisper-Kitten]

Risus is the OG rules lite narrative first game and it is a whooping 2 pages and is most certainly a complete game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

First of all, I agree-- with each spell and magic item and feat and such being a modular block of rules text, D&D in play is genuinely very complex. Hero System, despite some* bookkeeping in the character creation, tends to use the same basic rules over and over with mild variation (example: flash effects are just to-hit, damage, damage resistance with alternate numbers, and damage getting through converting to time blinded instead of hit points depleted). In fact, the break-point my group has found with HS is when everything starts feeling too same-y**.

I've seen that before; I don't really agree with it, but I understand it, especially if you're not making much use of Advantags and Limitations on powers.

*if you know what Hero System is at all, you've already heard all the arguments over point-cost math. No comment.

I ran and played in the system for something like 30 years, so, yeah.

That said, --
There's also going to be places where the difference is in terms of selection effects. While there are jokes about how rogues, barbarians, fighters, and monks are all just 'heroic guy with skills, weapons, and armor (or not)' that's a half-dozen ways of playing a 'martial' character, whereas HS has neigh infinite combinations towards that theme. Likewise fewer problems only magic can solve (and more that skills can). So there will be fewer 'wizards' in HS unless that's the character type someone specifically wants to play. But a 'wizard' in Hero System might very well have a dozen or more spells available to them (particularly if you use one of the power-framework options) -- and they'll be a little less exception-based than D&D, but still likely fairly complex*.
*doubly so if you take them right from the Grimoire books, which tend to solve problems the system doesn't readily solve by instead summoning a X point spirit to (for example) perform guard duty instead of figuring out how to make the Alarm spell using HS.

You can get really busy Hero characters in a number of ways; you just usually don't. At least until people go the whole enchilada and someone decides they absolutely must have a tactically shiftable Variable Pool. Admittedly that's because there's enough base options that you don't need to buy all the special case tools to have a decent chance at doing what they're doing (though there are some, which is why some of the martial manuevers exist, but they're when you're running toward the edge of the already fairly flexible system).

 

[bsss]

I'm not convinced that "rulings over rules" in a 5e context is the same thing as in a rules light context. An ethos to replace undesired rules with desired rules or rulings, or to plug the holes in the rules with rulings and adjudication, is definitely a form of "rulings over rules", but I think it is different than rules light adjudication. A rules light game may say, to paraphrase, "yeah, there are no rules for determining any target numbers on tasks; adjudicate it on your own" with intent, rather than providing a table of DCs for scenarios along with "you can change this if you want, of course".

Take Cthulhu Dark as an example. "[Roll 1 to 3 d6s.] Then your highest die shows how well you do. On a 1, you barely succeed. On a 6, you do brilliantly." That's like, half of all of the rules about the action/task mechanics and probably a quarter of the whole rules in the entire game. That's a different order of rulings and adjudication than 5e even suggests is in the realm of possibility in itself.

When do you roll? You want to know how well you succeed, whatever that means. What's the scale of success? Up to your interpretation. Nothing about how or when to apply the rule, just simply: here's the rule, use it as you would a general purpose tool.

What's there to dispute in a rules light system like Cthulhu Dark? That the GM made a wrong judgment call on the result of a 4? That the table shouldn't adjudicate and the book is wrong? It's on a completely different level than rulings within 5e.

 

[Thomas Shey]

What's there to dispute in a rules light system like Cthulhu Dark? That the GM made a wrong judgment call on the result of a 4? That the table shouldn't adjudicate and the book is wrong? It's on a completely different level than rulings within 5e.

Though I should note arguing judgment calls can happen in any game where the GM makes any judgment calls at all. And of course arguing that the rules are malformed for purpose in any game with rules of any sort.

(I'll agree however that arguing that the application of RAW is being failed is different, though in most games where the GM does that, I'm not sure its vastly different than the first case above).

 

[bsss]

Though I should note arguing judgment calls can happen in any game where the GM makes any judgment calls at all. And of course arguing that the rules are malformed for purpose in any game with rules of any sort.

Yeah, that kind of goes to my point, I feel --- that "there's stuff to interpret, right or wrong" is a fairly superficial form of "rulings over rules"; every game has that capability. Meanwhile, a rules light game has few rules to interpret and apply and a wide expanse of adjudication space, and 5e has tons and tons of rules to interpret and apply with a constrained adjudication space and "well you can make your own rules" lip service.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, that kind of goes to my point, I feel --- that "there's stuff to interpret, right or wrong" is a fairly superficial form of "rulings over rules"; every game has that capability. Meanwhile, a rules light game has few rules to interpret and apply and a wide expanse of adjudication space, and 5e has tons and tons of rules to interpret and apply with a constrained adjudication space and "well you can make your own rules" lip service.

Its probably less "lip service" and more "license and defense". But then, I'm a guy who considers going beyond the rules I'm using a sometimes necessary evil, not a virtue, whereas other people consider it the cardinal virtue.

 

[aramis erak]

This seems to imply that, "if too rules lite, add rules", but I'm more, "if too rules lite, play something else".

I, also, tend to look for something else which is actually in my comfort zone when I find the rules too light.