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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Zardoz" data-source="post: 3992848" data-attributes="member: 704">Kind of a thread derail, but...I will grant you that Rules Light games can encourage creativity in the manner you describe.  If you have no reason to think you cannot do something, you are much more likely to try it.  This can result in you ripping off cool things from movies or books, or just pulling them out of your arse.However, a Rules Light game also ultimately limits your options to those that the DM will expressly allow.  That in turn leads to situations where a DM will declare actions that he deems harmful to his plot / adventure / narrative to automatically fail.  Or it can lead to situations where the players think the DM is railroading them when he says that his villain is indeed capable of sneaking into their camp and stealing certain plot critical items.  Such arguments can and do happen between perfectly reasonable people.The presence of Rules do not inhibit creativity in and of themselves.  They can be an obstacle if a rule is too complicated to quickly apply (Grapple, resolving AoO's, and the 'Variable Sprawl' that leads to having more than 4 different modifiers to a given roll catch most of the blame for this in 3rd edition).  They can be a problem if the rule does not work out as well in practice as it ought to (Tumble not having an opposed roll, Diplomacy being maxed and applicable to all NPC's).  But I am not convinced that having a bad rule  is worse than having no rule.Having a rule for a given item can give the players and the DM an idea of what is possible.  Having rules for picking locks means that the players will know they can try that when they come to a locked door.  Having rules for an armour check penalty for heavy armour while swimming tell the DM that just because someone is wearing plate armour, it does not mean they automatically drown.The reason I am not a fan of Rules Light games is because I would rather argue with a DM over a rule than argue with a DM who wont let me try something at all.Anyway, thats enough of a de-rail for now.END COMMUNICATION</blockquote>

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