When is Rules Lite Too Lite?

[Thomas Shey]

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

I'd suspect generally if one finds a game too rules light to suit you, that the amount of reworking needed to change that is probably greater than is worthwhile unless you're interested in doing it for its own sake.

 

[GMNate]

Rules-light is too light when:

• the players are telling the GM what to do / characters are godlike
• one PC hogs the spotlight because the rules don't limit
• no one's sure what the ruling should be (because it's not in the book).

Honestly this is how many of the local tables play 5.5e and no amount of additional volumes of rules is going to change that.

 

[GMNate]

Rules lite means different things to different people. For some is means few pages. For some it means flexibility, and rulings over rules.

In this context (OPs post) I think it means the first one. I've never really had a problem with that, if the players enjoy the agency and the GM enjoys that.

But it completely falls apart, ime, if players want to be able to look at their character sheet and find something to do, imo. Or if the GM wants to have as many specific situations laid out with (for example) a DC table of different lock types (to use a 5e example) to determine the probability of a character being able to pick a particular lock.

Another context: Some people are going to look at a game where there is no combat for a full session and wonder what's the point. Other people are going to look at a game where no dice were thrown for an hour and relish the experience.

So I too find that "it depends."

 

[overgeeked]

Honestly this is how many of the local tables play 5.5e and no amount of additional volumes of rules is going to change that.

And expecting the book to cover everything is just wild. You're asking for several thousands of pages of rules if you want the book to cover everything. Every possible situation? Come on. That's beyond ridiculous.

 

[Clint_L]

After a horrifically long D&D campaign, my group switched over to Weird Heroes of Public Access. In WHPA, players are hosts of public access television shows who are tasked by the station manager with investigating various oddities around the small fictional town of Fairhaven. After a few sessions, the GM asked us how we were enjoying the game so far. One of the other players replied, "I'm having fun but I don't think it's because of the game itself."

There's really not much to the game itself. The rules for combat take up a single page. Character generation only takes up a few pages, and two of those pages are devoted to what abilities your character has depending on what kind of show they host. I don't even think there are any character advancement rules in the game. We've been playing for a few weeks and we're having fun, but at some point the lack of rules makes me feel as though we're just playing make believe instead of a game. I don't think I've ever played a game with so few rules before.

Anyone else experience this kind of thing with a rules lite game? In defense of WHPA, I don't think it was really designed to be played more than a few sessions at a time.

For me, games like this are great for one-shots, or maybe 2-3 game arcs. They aren't really designed to support a long campaign. Dread is my favourite game, but most games are one and done, and the most I've ever gone is three in a continuous story.