Why Are There So Many Rules Light Tabletop RPGs?
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- Опубликовано: 16 сен 2024
- Rules-light tabletop RPGs seem to be all the rage these days. But why? What's so great about them, and will be around forever? Let's talk about it.
#rpg #ttrpg #dnd #dnd5e #pathfinder #pathfinder2e #cyberpunk #cyberpunkred #dm #gm #dungeonmaster #gamemaster #gamedesign
I am definitely a rules heavy guy for various reasons:
For one, I *love* choices. I want intricate builds and hours sifting through features to find that perfect feat to compliment my character. That's just who I am. I mean, even 5e a not very rules lite game-putting it lightly-feels stifling for a long running campaign.
I have played a few rules lite games, and though I would consider myself above the bell curve in creativity... But after just one session , I am usually thinking "Okay, I have had enough. Let's move on," because I want there to be mechanics to guide the story.
And finally: tactical combat. Tactical combat, from what I have seen, needs at least a somewhat robust combat system. Tactics are choices. Thus, you need choices and consequences in order to feel tactical. If the choices are "Roll the dice to complete an action... Or don't," as some rules lite systems have, it feels like my choice is binary even if in reality it is not; as an example, I could fight with my strength or analagous ability by rolling 2d6 or I could flee with my dexterity or analogous ability rolling 2d6 and either way I risk damage if I fail and likely don't if I succeed. But what if one score is better? Well, now the choice is even less substantial because one path is more clear.
Now, don't get me wrong. Say you're trapped in a house, and monsters are ripping down the barricades you carefully set up the day before... The ungulating masses of hybrid creatures are spilling in through the windows and closing in on the party and you, as the muscle, are faced with two choices: fight risking injury so your allies can retreat safely or try retreating with them and hope that your pursuers don't catch up to you. There's definitely some choice there, especially if your "run away" skill is lacking, but that's not really tactical... That's more a dramatic choice, I feel.
So, TL;DR, I guess... I am a tactically minded gamer so tactical, and thus, crunchy games appeal to me more than rules lite potentially more dramatic games.
It's funny how people who complain that combat is nothing but sitting around rolling to see if you can thwack the other guy with your sword every 15 minutes, tend to play systems where the only thing you can do is roll to see if you thwack the other guy with your sword every 15 minutes. If you want interesting combat, you need a system with developed enough mechanics to give it to you.
@@allseeingeyetrpgyou will also need a GM making use of the same mechanics, And encounters that are not just 8 goblins on a featureless plane
Indeed. This is why I spend a lot of prep time making each of my NPCs a unique character in their own right, even if they'll only be around for one combat.
Lack of tactical combat is my main gripe with rules-light as well. To be fair, there is _some_ room for creativity: if you can come up with a clever move, or even just a cool description for it, the GM often gives you some kind of bonus to the attack, and that dynamic can genuinely be fun. But mechanically it still feels pretty same-y. And in theater-of-the-mind games (as rules-lights almost always are) it can lead to a lot of haggling about the details of a scene.
Yea, I'd say rules light TTRPGs are more for drama and roleplaying while rules heavy are more for tactics and game-like things.
One thing that really annoys me about how the discussion usually goes is a claim that for any reasonable rule, a good GM could just make a ruling or houserule on the spot to satisfy the same principle. This has been said to me a very large amount of times by people who (for reasons I don't understand) feel the need to explain to me why my game is bad before they've read it.
Game design is hard. I've spent 5 years pulling my hair out over incredibly hard design conundrums. No GM with a brain smaller than Belgium can achieve the same rules quality in 5 seconds that I can in 5 years. I certainly can't, or this project wouldn't have taken 5 years. You don't have to expect that level of quality, it's fine to have more improvised rules, but this still leaves my game with a point that a simpler game can't replicate.
Also, you can't improvise complex interconnected systems of rules. You can design them, but what you can improvise is single simple rules that stand mostly alone in the larger context.
And also also, you can't make a quick ruling to change the fundamental building blocks of whatever game you're playing in the first place. If I disagree with some of the fundamental conceptions about how D&D5e envisions the mechanical space of clerics, what level of GM badass would I have to be to fix that with a quick 5 second ruling? Is it a level of GM badassery you can realistically expect from everyone?
I think the origin of these arguments is that the people who make them is that they don't want or can't envision very big differences from D&D5e (D&D5e is always the one they're comparing to btw) in a fantasy adventure game. They assume that I can't either, and that what I've written is basically a liist of house rules for D&D5e instead of a different game.
The whole thing is made a lot funnier by the fact that D&D5e is rather rules heavy. The people arguing against me writing a rules heavy game and in favour of keeping it rules light have a rules heavy game as their only example of a rules light one. Obviously, there are also people arguing for rules light games from the position of having actually played one, but they're not the ones I'm annoyed with today.
What kind of game did you design?
D&D is on the heavier end of medium. The issue is that it is compounded by a lot of specific rules for edge cases and hard numbers rather than systemic rules, which makes it far more clunky than appropriate for its actual mechanical complexity.
@@IshanekonWorldShapers A detailed simulationist fantasy adventure rpg with a rather large focus on making "builds" be diverse and feel different to play, on having a rather strong "kinaesthetic" quality in its combat, and on making the tactics complex and successful tactical play rewarding.
@@saraphilosophizes Simulationist, eh? It sounds a bit too crunchy for my taste, but making builds feel diverse is a good goal. We all know that D&D 5e definitely has a problem with that one. What do you mean by kinaesthetic? That players and enemies move around a lot?
@@IshanekonWorldShapers It's sort of the "game feel". It's primarily a video game term, where things are actually moving, but my game often manages to scratch the same itch that good kinaesthetics in a video game can. It's a little bit hard to explain but it results from the rather detailed combat manoeuvres and reactions, and from the rather impactful damage system. I don't have a hp bar, and cutting parts off of enemies is much more common than in for example warhammer fantasy rp.
"Rules light is objectively better." "Horseshit."
Right on. Consolidated resolutions are great, minimal complication for maximum utility has been repeatedly proven to work across a host of systems, but I can count the "rules light" games I've played long-term that didn't devolve into a mess of house rules on one hand... Because there were none.
At some point, you hit a hard ceiling for the maximum utility you can get with minimum complication. After that, you have to get off your high horse and accept that sometimes more utility means more complexity.
In any TTRPG, the best system for the group depends on how much they want roleplaying and how much they want gaming. Millions of people play videogames and don't think at all about roleplaying while doing so, and likewise millions of people roleplay without using any mechanics and without using dice at all. I started with Pathfinder 1e and then afterward learned freeform writing RP (no system).
Rules-lite appeals to players who prefer roleplaying, and want to sprinkle in some mechanics on the side, while rule-heavy system appeal to players who want to play a game that also allows them to sprinkle in roleplaying. Like most spectrums, I expect a normal distribution/bell curve where the majority of people prefer something in the middle, which is generally the popularity of D&D 5e shows.
People who are good collaborative storytellers will often feel stifled by making game rules apply to their writing, and people who are tactical and analytical will often feel that breaking or ignoring rules for the sake of roleplaying/drama takes the fun out of it for them.
And then there's Burning Wheel, for people who want mechanics _and_ roleplay no matter how convoluted it makes the rules.
@@allseeingeyetrpg There's always its more digestible cousin, Torchbearer! 😃
@@quickanddirtyroleplaying Why play a game with slick, condensed mechanics that does 80% of what BW does with half the rules, when you could faff about with the Fight! rules instead? 😜
The increased burden is not only on the GM. Rules-lite also puts the onus of decisions and character competency much more on the player's own abilities than, in many regards, the character's. For example, it is difficult (when at all possible) to play a believable character more intelligent or charismatic than oneself in rules-lite system because the player has to provide it. Building in rules and mechanics for character knowledge, induction/deduction, or mechanics for social influence can do a lot to better enable characters to perform to their own standards.
Structural incentives also frame and act as a feedback mechanism for choices and actions and can also introduce alternative levels of mechanical depth, add/change the engagement type(s), and/or change the reinforcement schedule. Rules-lite games are necessarily pretty same-y; they tend to deliver a very narrow set of game loops and engagement types (often a single game loop and one-to-three engagement types) regardless of build variety or context, making them very one-note outside of narrative changes. Not only across character build but often across scenes and adventures, the experience is often not meaningfully different outside of narrative or story changes, which undermines the verisimilitude and immersion of said story or narrator the extent that the participants care. By both statistical probability across normal distributions and evidence of the popular types of games, most people care a moderate amount.
The dominant ttrpg type is actually medium complexity. D&D alone accounts for slightly over half of ttrpg activity from what data we have, and I am uncertain that includes any editions other than 5e and certainly does not include one of the other largest ttrpgs, Pathfinder.
Or, rules-lite games are valid though _massively_ over-hyped by a myopic and incestuous (figuratively) small subset of ttrpg players (which is a tiny audience) very enamored of their echo chamber. It is a second Vampire: The Masquerade popular(-ish) phase, and I expect it to be similarly dependent on medium complexity systems acting as the entry point and lion's share of the hobby and fleeting in the long run.
Player-facing game mechanics can definitely help a player separate themselves from their character. Without some incentive for your character to think or act any differently to how you would, most PCs will turn into self-inserts rather quickly.
I like rules light for running one shot games with strangers at a con. For campaign play I like heavy.
I have a theory about rule density. I believe that players that have a specific experience in mind, like rules light. Players that want the game to reveal itself to them like rules heavy.
In a con game with strangers, to attract players, its much easier to sell a specific idea. I can say "this game is about muppets being hunted for meat and trying to get to safety" and I get plenty of players.
In a campaign about muppets being hunted for meat, I would want a whole lot more variety in the game mechanics to surprise me and help tell the story.
Yeah, rules-light games definitely work better for short-term play. You can enjoy all the novelty of your game concept without dickering with mechanics, and you'll move on to the next idea long before the system wears thin on you.
If I had a nickel for every Muppets game I've seen at a convention, I'd have two nickels- which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
I like elements of a lot of rules systems. For myself, I like a system that has a core that's rules-light, but you can add modular rules to it to make it as rules-heavy as you want in whatever area you want it to be more complex.
ive been thinking about this. i think there is a good balance of simple yet crunchy, like having critical hits is an example of good crunch even tho are more dice need to be added, but people love to crunch those extra dice and everyone at the table is more then happy to wait a few more seconds as their ally counts extra damage.
if a game is to simple it gets boring to fast, if its to crunchy it scares away to many players so only the nerdiest of elitist will learn the system. overall it needs to be simple enough to pick up but crunchy enough that the players become addicted with the system.
its like how tolkien describes how he wrote the hobbit even though it was written to be child friendly he didn't believe in treating the kids like they were stupid. there has to be some deeper topics then even if they might not thoroughly understand them as kids but as they grow into adults its something they can truly appreciate the older and wiser they get.
Currently designing a TTRPG system of my own, and one of the key issues I had was how much I hate Rules-Light systems. I want complex mechanics, I want a lot of variety that is clearly slated out with little room for interpretation, and most of all, I love using those rules to create highly-specific characters, builds, and encounters. I also have virtually no improv skills, and am very bad at thinking on my feet, so I have little interest in playing Rules-Light systems.
But, I do my best to ensure that things are not too complicated, either for the players or the GM. To achieve this, I designed my own Character Sheets which have WAY more information than, say, D&D 5e, I also created Spell Cards to make Spell Selection a lot easier for players, and I've taken a lot of effort to ensure that the English and Grammar used to describe mechanics is proper without being too complex.
EZ. Writing acrual rules takes effort and opens yourself up to scrutiny when your rules are bad. Saying "Roll some dice and make it up" puts all the burden on the GM who just bought your $9.99 bullshit off Drive Thru.
I think ultimately it's a matter of Authorship and Audience. Rules light games are much simpler to create so they are created more often. As well they're much simpler for a small audience of system addicts that want to read new ttrpg systems to buy and read so there is a healthy market for them.
I'm personally always happy to see new interesting things happen in ttrpgs so the trend has some positives but it does feel that rules heavy systems are certainly more popular with actual players.
The real tension happens i think happens in the concentration of bad or unsatisfactory rules. When there are lots of rules, many not so well thought out it's easier to ignore them. When there are fewer rules there are fewer rules to be bad. But when you have many good rules the bad ones start to stick out and generate poor sentiments.
There is something to the idea that disconnected systems protect game masters from causing far reaching damage when making poor rulings. But that still feels a lot like cope for nostalgia of bad old rules.
"If you have many good rules a few bad ones stick out"
You've hit it right on the head there. All complaints about pathfinder2e I see are about the same few rules.
The thing with those rules-light games that get pumped out and bought/read by indie RPG aficionados is so very few ever get played. A rules light game with a quirky setting or mechanical concept is a great way to fund your Kickstarter, as long as you don't mind your system becoming a glorified shelf warmer.
How many rules does a game need? And how many of those rules do the players ever use? So how many are necessary for a "complete" game? I think that we're in the middle of the debate now, and all these games are trying to sort it out. How much is too much, and how little is not enough? I've seen and played games all over the spectrum, and sometimes the answer is very specific to the game itself. Some games only need a small rule-set to make it work, while others need to go deep and cover everything. I find rules light games easier to pick up and play, so to speak, and I think that's better than spending precious game time preparing to play or wading thru the rules to figure out what's happening. Heavy games have a lot to offer, but they're an investment that's not for everyone.
IME you don’t need any rules until you need them. Frex, you can play for years & years without needing a drowning mechanic… but when you finally need it, you’ll want a good one. If a PC is drowning, you want one which at least _feels_ fair, because an “unfair” character death can quickly spiral into the death of the entire campaign. At the same time, you don’t want one which feels easy to defeat (lest players immediately stop fearing drowning) or easy to exploit (lest all PC tactics suddenly revolve around suspiciously small amounts of water).
So here, game design does two important things. First, it (hopefully) ensures that the rules do a good job of handling edge cases. But just as importantly, it shields the GM from being the bad guy. If the GM improvises a bad drowning mechanic, they’re the asshole. But if the _system_ has a bad drowning mechanic, then the system itself will likely be the focus of any player drama.
I found myself really getting frustrated with how… retarded… the rules can be in 5e.
As someone else said, 5e codes for exceptions, not systems. Everything feels like it needs to have its own unique rule. Nothing can be standardised.
My game designer neurons are itching. I wanna remake 5e to not be so retarded. I’ve already made a magic item creation system and a rework for the monk.
I really wanna standardise the classes. 3 half-casters, one for each stat. Each stat should have an equal number of casters. Screw Charisma.
I should make my own system.
I've had the same itch in the back of my head for a year or two now. And it's because I LIKE 5e, to a great extent. When I came to it from 3.5e, I loved how modular the whole thing felt, and it made it so easy to homebrew. Writing a new subclass to achieve a specific idea is so easy! I like the experience created by bounded accuracy, where stacking bonuses are rare and challenges rarely become either completely trivial or impossible. Sure, there were things I didn't like in the core rules, but I kind of assumed they would add more systems over time and flesh certain things out. They certainly did for 3.5e, we were buried in sourcebooks by the end of that.
But they just... didn't. There was some decent new content for the existing systems in some books, new subclasses and spells, but the new systems I expected would eventually be released never came. Crafting was always nonsensically bad and undefined. Concentration might be needed to prevent stacking too many effects, but it's so binary and harsh it squashes so much potential. Hardly any new mundane weapons or armor, and what's there is so samey aside from a few properties - nothing wild like exotic weapons, special materials, etc.
Part of why this itch has stuck in my head for so long is because I really do feel like there's a good skeleton at the heart of 5e, just waiting for a necromancer to reanimate and beef up by adding systems with more depth than what we got.
Please make Strength and Intelligence actually useful. And fix encumbrance. And make damage/HP scaling actually sensible. And simplify the action economy.
Honestly, there are so many issues with 5e. Personally, I care so little for d20 class+level games as a concept that I don't care to fix 5e, but if you wanna go ahead, more power to you.
@@IronWilliam YES!
5e has always scratched my game designer itch cos it’s simultaneously heavy enough to provide a good framework for extension, but rules-light enough that you can change a ton and not break things.
God I love seeing people who actually recognize that 5e does this. It's a really difficult game to keep in my head for that reason, even compared to what would otherwise be more "crunchy" games. TBF it's a problem D&D, specifically, has always had, but in the past it was enough for your skill monkey to know how skill monkey stuff worked.
The even bigger (but perhaps related) issue with 5e in my mind is that it started as a dungeon crawler trying to win old-school players back without alienating 3e fans, but pivoted into trying to be something more narriative when it noticed that other games were doing that. It's designed by committee and I don't think it's a satisfactory game for any of those crowds, which is why it's so often either heavily homebrewed, or at least 1/4th of the rules get dropped for being fiddly and irrelevant.
Old School GM here (Champions/Hero Systems) but for the last 13 years it's been all D&D (mostly 5e) with a smidge of rules light one shots like Year Zero Engine and a bunch of 1 and 2 page systems. As a more experienced GM/DM making a "feels good enough" rule or interpretation on the fly is as easy as blinking. I also poll my players regularly and the gist of their feedback is the following:
For long term campaigns they want options "crunch" for advancement to get the feeling of farmboy Fred growing into the Grand Hero of the world. They like the crunchy options to make advancement feel good and to differentiate their build from the rest of the party (Example all six players played as dwarven rangers for a seven-shot session).
Outside of character builds and advancement the players were fine with Super Crunchy Character creation but once we transitioned to table play the skill/trait resolution can and should be fairly simple. aka Gurps/Hero System with roll under on 3d6. While in combat the players tended to prefer having rules/options/tactics so Combat could be crunchier as well to give that tactics flavor. Outside of combat they are fine with just rolling a few D6 or even fate dice (love me some fate dice).
My table absolutely loved Year Zero Mini as a one shot, but it was "too simple" for continued character advancement. We are about to wrap a 12 year campaign and since Covid we've been forced to find something that was very VTT friendly so that's our biggest hurdle to what system we run with for our next campaign. So to me, the medium plus crunch for Character Creation and "advancement/levelling" + combat is where the party feels like having rules are nice to lean on but we've also seen a lot of new players (Wifes/Husbands/Domestic Partners) join our table but struggle with decision fatigue so those newer players "LOVE" the lighter narrative focused play. I will also add that having phone/tablet friendly options for the remote sessions is a big plus. If you homebrew like we do, homebrew is tougher when the digital tools come into play.
I should have added a bit about toolkit systems like Hero/Gurps/Cortex Prime BUT that's a huge burden on the GM to pick and choose the rules they want to run with.
Here's an interesting conundrum.
Is 'rules light' 'rule efficient'?
Because there's a difference to say... lasers and feelings which fit on a single page, only has 2 traits and you roll a single D6 for everything. And say, Mouseritter where they take what would be a very 'complicated' inventory system and convert it into tetris. Like, you could have had it to where "you have 2 stats for each item that determines how heavy and unwieldy it is, if you go over on 'one' of those then you cant fit it on your person" and each item has 2 additonal numbers just to deal with 'inventory'... but now you simulate the exact same 'problem' by just having it be this fun little packing mini game.
The thing about it is that you can get something that 'feels rules light' when its 'efficient' with its rules. So say instead of having 6 different mechanics to do 6 different things, you figure out a way to use the same parts of a resolution mechanic to 4 of those. Now you 'basically' took 4 chunks of rules and snuggly fit them into an elegant 1.5 sized chunk of rules that gets used over and over through out the game, just in slightly different ways depending on how you use it. Maybe you now combine HP and your traits so that now every time a character gains a point in strength or dex, they get 1 hp. Maybe instead of having 120 HP you have 3 'HP' that only gets crossed off whenever you hit a damage threshold and it gives you a fun debuff. What if, you take your current combat mechanics for fighting and traveling a dungeon, and you made it into a ship with rooms you have to be to activate certain aspects of that ship, and now with like, what, a tiny handful of rules your simulating multi person spaceship combat where 80% of the rules is 'also' the combat/traversal rules.
Cause there's like, a difference between a very 'maximalist' game that has subsystems upon subsystems for 'every single thing' you can do thats just another different mini game, and say a game that tries to do as much as it can with a simple system that then adds maybe one or two new mechanics for things that cant be done with that other system, and even then those new rules are then extrapolated to new 'other' things to where you have whats basically a very 'deep' game with 3 core mechanics.
Now, can there be a 'non efficient' rules light system... I'd say yes, and I'd say that it describes most PbtA games. Cause the rules that 'are' there don't do much, and how the games are constructed its scope and flexibility is 'very' limited. Though its also due to the nature of games with 'narrative mechanics'. Heck, Flying Circus is a great example of that as it has your usual 'pbta' 2d6 narrative rules, and then you have this really over the top dog fighting mechanic that uses an entirely 'different' system and is completely different from anything else in the game to where you even need your own 'dashboard'. And yet all you can 'do' with that game is... um... sloppy romantic kisses and a sub par abstract dogfighting game that uses theater of the mind.
Like, lets take WhiteHack, that game is as efficient as a bicycle. Its a very... alright it is an absolute mess of a read, but the rules are flexible and crunchy to the point where you can make your own spells, or hacks, you have your martial abilities. The bones are there and its so easy to home brew whatever you want.
And here's the interesting thing, does 'content' add to a game's complexity? Does having 30 random generation tables to make villages or shop keeps or monsters 'add rules'? Does having a bunch of 'options' have rules, like, does a 'rules light OSR' game no longer become 'rules light' if there's 40 different classes and 60 races that are each mechanically distinct from each other?
Yeah this is one of those "its semantics bro" kind of replies but, I really think there is something to think about when you change your question from "How many rules are there" in a game, to "how efficient are those rules" to a game. On top of things like, how easy is it to homebrew for said game? Like... D&D 5e might be 'rules medium', but due to all of the 'stuff' and 'exceptions' and bloat it's "Rules Medium" with "low efficiency" Or just... incoherent.
Though yeah, the answer to the question is that, I feel that in an attempt to make more 'efficent' rules, people who don't understand the process of game design are just miming what they see others do and just making games with 'fewer rules' to the point where we've overshot a good 'medium' when it comes to game design. On top of say, it being easier to make a 'rules light game' and packing in 60 random generator tables to make the book look big and imposing *COUGH* Shadowdark *COUGH*.
I honestly regret not putting a slide on "rules efficiency" in the video.
I generally consider random tables to be game mechanics. They need to be interfaced with in similar ways to other rules, they provide structure (and can help with creativity), and they are inherently limiting (since you can't roll anything that isn't on the table).
@@allseeingeyetrpg I think another aspect to consider is that there is a difference between "Rules light/heavy" systems and "Open/Closed" systems.
By Open/Closed I mean how much it is possible for all players to do things that are not directly spelled out by the rules. In closed systems, it is difficult to do something that is not codified by the rules or is not directly stated in your character sheet. In open systems, it's easy and encouraged.
Considering how other youtubers and people in general talk about this, the assumption is that Rules heavy systems tend to be closed, and rules light systems tend to be open, using D&D 5e and OSR as an example. While in this case it makes sense, it's not always the case.
For instance, PbtA is absolutely rules light, but also extremely closed, because all actions that you can make should be codified in one of the moves your character is allowed to make. And if you use a rule, you have to roll.
On the other hand, I can think of at least one example of a game that is extremely rules heavy but also very open: Shadowrun (I have experience with 5e, but I think some aspect can be generalized, at least to previous edition).
You have a ton of different rules and tools for shooting stuff, for hitting stuff, for hacking stuff and for magic, but it's still a system that rewards creativity.
Actually, the rules favor creativity, because when you explain in detail how electronics and magic work and what limits they have, the players can come up with ways to disrupt them without hoping the GM gives them an opening or resorting to an opposed die roll.
Which leads me to a realization I've had as a player: the more they know how the world works, the less handholding they need in finding interesting solutions to problems.
@@leonardorossi998 Your last point neatly summarises part of my issue with rules-light games: since what the players can and can't do is often left down to GM fiat, players can end up needing more handholding. On the other hand, with an rules-heavy but open ruleset, players can go into a situation confidently knowing what they can and can't do, and can improvise from there.
@@allseeingeyetrpg Maybe a second video discussing the advantages of 'rules efficiency' and that there's 'a difference' between that and rules light?
HRM, in my case random tables 'can' be considered mechanics if they are player facing and/or mandatory, like you have a 'mutation table' for your fallout game where each character must roll after they get X amount of rads.
But I think a "small monster loot table" cant be considered mechanics and can be considered "GM Resources" because thats the kind of stuff a GM could easily just make up for themselves but after the 30th monster its just easier to use the table. Or a random name table to make up "Jimbo Ikea". Like, if you can 'basically' look over the table and just use whatever catches your eye, then I dont see it as game mechanics. ((Not to say it isn't useful, I have a book called "The Dungeon Dozen" that gives me such fun ideas for game sessions))
I just don't think those things actively 'add' to the experience in the same way an actual 'game mechanic' does. Cause a giant book of random tables doesn't make a game...
(Hides copy of Arabian Nights)
@@SplotchyInk I don't think there's enough material to be squeezed out of "rules light vs rules efficient" topic to make a full video, but if I address this topic in a future video I'll add a quick note about the difference.
As for whether non-mandatory tables are mechanics, there absolutely are player-facng non-mandatory tables. Things like tables for appearance (D&D 5e's height and weight tables, WFRP's hair/eye/skin colour tables, etc) usually aren't considered mandatory when they're included. Likewise, some systems like Cyberpunk RED and Conan 2d20 feature random tables in their character creation, which some people treat as mandatory and some don't. Finally, some GM-facing tables are mandatory, like the reaction roll table from early D&D. So trying to decide whether tables are mechanics honestly muddies the waters.
When comparing the overall quality of modern games vs older games, I think it’s important to be aware of survivorship bias. There have always been many, many, many crap games. Some were crap because they were created by small teams without the means to adequately test or market them, and so they just never caught on. And many crap games which did survive eventually overhauled their rules-like D&D, frankly.
You can avoid that bias by comparing past and present editions of the same games (which is more apples-to-apples). Cyberpunk 2020, for instance, does have a much less refined ruleset than Cyberpunk RED, but it also has far fewer typos, a more efficient layout, and art where you can actually tell what the image is meant to be. The art of Exalted 2e is more dynamic and evocative than the art of 3e (which just has drab people standing around with constipated facial expressions). I've never seen anyone complain that either Dark Heresy edition was a mess of typos in its first printing (though I may have missed anyone that did), but Imperium Maledictum's errors made it borderline unplayable on release.
I genuinely don't know what's going on here, but there's an epidemic of shoddy quality control on recent RPG products from large, mainstream publishers that should really have the money to do better (R. Talsorian, Onyx Path, Cubicle 7).
I prefer my games with a bit of crunch. Making cool builds is not possible in rules-light games, as fun as they can be. They also have far less tactical combat.
I think having an optional crunch when designing a game is a good idea. In my game, for example, I added a complexity rating and filter. You could make a complex, elemental combo-sorcerer that uses three carefully chosen abilities in combination with multiple Talents that all interact with each other, or you can just go with a base-line Evoker that only takes the Talents that grant simple numerical bonuses. There are complex crafting rules with hundreds of upgrades, or you can also just buy the +1 sword at the shop. This way, you can make both types of players happy.
I'm curious how this complexity filter system works - could you explain it in more detail?
@@allseeingeyetrpg Thanks for asking.
Almost everything (Sub-Archetypes, Paths, Abilities, Talents, Traits, Upgrades, and Creatures) have a complexity level from 1 to 4.
1 Is the super simple stuff, like Precise Attack, which just increases your attack roll.
2 is still very simple but usually has some minor extra effect, like Poison Projectile that deals damage and poisons the target.
3 is mechanically more complex, situational, or requires you to make specific builds to really profit from it. For example, Downswing deals extra damage to prone targets, but you need something to set it up, like Trip Attack or Dirty Fighter. Otherwise, it is very ineffective.
4 is only for experienced players or super situational. Summoning Abilities fall in here since they require you to manage a second creature.
In addition to the complexity system, I have a Beginner tag that limits your choices to the very basics. This is for people who have never played a TTRPG.
I also have a core tag that reduces the number to something more manageable and excludes the situational stuff. This is for people with TTRPG experience who do not want to sift through the 800 Abilities when making their first character.
I made a search engine where you can easily filter through all of these. I also have tags for character roles like Melee Weapon User, Support, Control, etc.
If you want to see the system in action, you can find it on my website for free. The link is on my RUclips channel.
I'm buried in other RPG books at the moment, but I've clicked on the website and I'll have a look at the system once I have more time.
I’m not sure quite what you mean by “cool builds”, because I’ve encountered (and created) some characters which I thought were pretty cool in rules-light systems such as Over the Edge. It’s just that the coolness exists at a higher level of abstraction… which makes for less interesting tactical crunch, true, but which also makes for some very interesting character concepts & power usage.
@@nw42You can, of course, make interesting/fun/cool characters in most rules-light systems, but a character is not a build. With a build, I mean the mechanics and not the personality/look. Most number nerds will not get the same satisfaction from realizing their vision by cleverly combining multiple features that beautifully interact with each other compared to just taking the one stat that fits thematically.
I can play a complexly written character with a deep backstory and personality just the same in a rules-light and crunchy system. Still, only the crunchy one gives me the satisfaction one gets from cooking a beautiful meal, finishing a complex program, or building a smoothly running base in a video game. Not everyone needs that, which is entirely valid, but some of us like the additional "work" we put in to make the character truly our own-mechanically and narratively.
But I understand why the crunch gets in the way of the pure roleplayer. They are here to live a story and see where it takes their character; rule complexity only hinders that.
After 40 years of roleplay, I prefer collaborative storytelling over any rules system whether crunchy or lite. Heavy rules tend to lead players into building a shallow character with a few powerful tools and using those to resolve any situation, or build a Swiss army character who can a bit of everything. Lite rules can have an opposite and stifling effect where the players don’t know what their characters can accomplish safely, or at least know the risks, and will avoid doing anything. One of my favorite RPGs is the original Star Wars d6 system with a simple mechanic that works well, has built in multiple actions, and can be easily scaled. After many sessions, our group were able to quickly gauge what could be accomplished based on the number of dice and pips. It wasn’t necessary to roll dice for every action or situation. I find it difficult to have that same intuition with most RPGs as the chances of successes and failures are so swingy.
Basically, as far as I can tell, rules light systems lend themselves much better to "narrative styled" games. That is games that take a heavy hand in using mechanics that rely on manipulating the meta narrative rather than using a character to manipulate the game world directly. Fate points would be a narrative mechanic for example. Rules light games don't provide a lot of tools for player to character immersion, yet due to their lack of rules they provide a much quicker play experience for more "cinematic" or "narrative" play styles.
As such, while preference is subjective, as far as game design is concerned, the style of game you build should play into the level of complication you put into it. More rules heavy games should be more immersion based and rules light games should be more narrative based. Mixing the two can quickly cause a disconnect for many players at the table. d&d 4e is a good example of this. A more rules heavy complicated experience that had pervasive narrative mechanics used throughout. As a result many players ended up complaining that the game felt "video gamey", despite the passable narrative experience it provided.
I'd argue rules lite, does tactical fantastical. But the zigiest of playing a rpg is that if the sheet doesn't say I can do X, then I can't do X.
With the caveat that the group needs a experienced enough GM to work with the players
I love your videos mate.
Glad you enjoy them! The one major advantage I see for rules-light games in combat is that because you spend less time interfacing with the rules, you can spend more time narrating without it impacting the pacing of the combat. This way you get everyone more immersed in what they're doing.
@@allseeingeyetrpg While that can work, personally the one thing that immerses me in a combat is not the "how" of how it's played out but the "why".
The most memorable fights I had were not ones were everyone was all over themselves narrating the spectacular stunts their characters were doing. They were the ones where a character I deeply cared about was fighting for something they deeply cared about. I might have just sat there, rolling dice and talking about numbers, but I knew what those numbers meant, and every choice I made mattered.
@@leonardorossi998 Agreed. The best combats are the ones you're invested in because of how they tie into your character's goals. However, getting players invested in a fight isn't something that either rules-light or rules-heavy games do better than the other. Rather, it's the narrative-heavy games that do this the best.
@@allseeingeyetrpgAgreed. Although I'd say that the specific game (i.e. the scenario you are playing) and how it jives with the player has more impact than the system itself.
Writing a new RPG has become the new parachute pants
If by that you mean _THEY’RE AWESOME_ then yes, absolutely!
I don’t think rule lite is necessary. But I am a minimalist and prefer brevity. If you have a rule for everything , they need to be brief and possibly so easy to grasp you could memorise them
Same. What really annoys me is when a rule starts with about a paragraph of flavour text, but the mechanic itself only takes one sentence to explain.
yes ! this is so annoying and half the reason i didnt learn DND i have ADHD and reading is already boring me, let alone getting through the waffling. I need Bullets points! This is why i like ICRPG and how the rules are 1 sentence and the "mechanics" are written in ALL CAPS. Like Short sword. STR ATTACK, range CLOSE , deal WEAPON EFFORT. Then people just need to learn STR ATTACK = Roll d20 + str bonus against the taret number. Deal 1d6 dmg (effort system is memorisable) to targets in "close" range which is people in arms reach/5 feet.
There doesnt need to be more than that on your character sheet and its amazing. @@allseeingeyetrpg
I played rules heavy games like "The Dark Eye 3E and 4E" for 25+ years. I learned to love rules light games like Lady Blackbird, Lasers and Feelings and Blades in the Dark in the last year and I have to say: I dont think I will ever go back to crunchy systems. I dont say rules light is better. It just not for me or the people I GM 30+ times a year.
Simple rules appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator => Complex rules appeal to elitists => Simple rules appeal to creatives.
The is kind of a no-shit statement, but the quality of the rules is far more important than how many of them there are. War hammer 4th edition is what brought in into trpgs but because of how much it has going on it has huge issues the biggest being the advantage system (which they thankfully fixed in the up in arms expansion) and the fact you can keep corruption rerolling mutation checks technically breaks the game. I personally don't consider it that complex but is may just be it is the system I first played and am most used to.
Less can sometimes be more I completely agree that a quality GM will do better with less rules and it will be more noticeable an issue if the GM in new or not very creative. My favorite game of all time is Symbaroum as it essentially heavily simplifies the rules yet also fixes all my issues with DND 5e. It does not try and write out every technically rule for a spell so does leave interpretation to a GM. It has less skills, races and spells overall than D&D but they are far more interesting and mean more I feel and are heavily tied to the lore of the world, making everything much more impactful. Quality of the rules are more important to me though this generally ends up being a medium amount I supposed of rules overall. Honestly it is more of the once you have so many rules you have inconsistencies and are contradicting themselves or your rules are so poorly explained or laid out that it is a nightmare to understand them are more the issues. For example I want to and keep trying to like five rings (fantasy flight edition) but it is so horrifically poorly written with essential rules in random side notes and me flipping all over the place that it just slows down the game to a crawl when anyone ever wants to essentially do anything. It is also a rather complex game and when you have a complex game that is poorly formatted and written it makes for kind of a night mare game experience especially for a GM that wants to try to run things as close to the intended rules as possible.
I really love the Warhammer Fantasy setting, and I wanted to love WFRP 4e, but after reading the rules a few times, I kept finding issues with them and just exiled the game to my shellf without playing it. It hadn't actually occurred to me that you could corruption reroll mutation checks, but I definitely see it now.
Yeah, the more rules you have in your game, the more opportunities you have to screw them up. Conan 2d20 really stands out to me as a game with a lot of rules (especially in its supplements), that have such vague wording, inconsistent terminology, and good ol' bad editing that trying to rule on them as a GM is pain incarnate.
There’s a level of rules light that is too airy-fairy for me and a level of rules-heaviness that sticks in my craw. Most want a happy medium but I think 5e is often significantly north/crunchier of that medium IMO
D&D 5e has the worst of both worlds IMO. It has a huge list of spells and abilities plus lots of awkward edge-case rules (like a rules-heavy game), and also shallow mechanics that require constant GM interpretation (like a rules-light game). It's honestly incredible how many ways they screwed that game up.
Interesting take. I got into TTRPGs after 10+ years roleplaying on forums and over private email threads; I'm interested in rules only insofar as they structure or give weight to the narrative I/we are collaboratively telling. I've tried several times to get into DnD but found myself extremely uninterested in the combat. And DnD campaigns are usually composed of players with very different reasons for engaging in the gameplay/systems--for that reason alone I have started heavily preferring solo TTRPGs, which are, on the whole, much more rules-lite.
Moreover, even if I enjoy a rules-heavy system because of the weight/"realism" it can offer my character and shape their impact on the narrative, systems like DnD have the idea of "power progression through play" built in. The (literal) levelling up aspect is something that I find very limiting in terms of creating and playing a character (I find it limiting to a kind of ontologically heroic narrative of increasing mastery over yourself and the world around you), and so it's hard for this kind of rules-heavy system to keep my attention in the long-term, or over multiple characters in multiple campaigns.
Rules-lite solo games are a good solution for me, giving me prompts/guidance for character- and decision-making, without compromising the time I am actually spending writing the character and telling the story, which is the part I find fun.
Finally...I have never tried rules-lite group play with strangers but I can absolutely imagine it is the worst thing in the world. I tried a rules-lite oneshot with a friend (also 10+ years literary roleplayer in forum spaces) and their friend (decidedly NOT a literary roleplayer), it was bearable because it was a one-shot. Really think rules-lite is something that should be done collaboratively only with friends or people with trusted mutual gameplay interests.
A few points here:
1) D&D is a uniquely poorly designed system. Disliking it is perfectly normal and something I strongly encourage.
2) As for your issues with D&D players, there's two things going on here. First, D&D being such a mainstream game, it attracts a wide variety of players who all have very different (and often incompatible) interests. To make matters worse, D&D utterly to define and enforce its genre conventions, which just makes life more confusing.
3) I've not played a ton of solo RPGs. Chaosium made a choose-your-own-adventure-style solo scenario for Call of Cthulhu called "Alone Against the Flames" that I liked. I also tried Ironsworn, but I couldn't nail down a character concept for it and bounced off.
4) For someone like yourself, I recommend Luke Crane's games, specifically Burning Wheel. It is notoriously rules-heavy, but the rules are all there expressly to help build the most dramatic possible story for your character.
I think it's a mistake to call PbtA games "rules light." Each PbtA game has its own level of rules complexity (i.e. World of Dungeons on one end and Avatar Legends on the other), though they all have genre emulation in mind.
Also, the distinction between complexity and complication needs to be made with regards to TTRPG rules systems. Complexity adds depth to a system, whereas complication adds hassle to running the system, and these two are not correlated with each other on a 1:1 basis. An elegant system will achieve the same amount of complexity as a labyrinthine system but with much less complication (i.e. fiddly bits). D&D and Pathfinder are fundamentally simple systems (d20 + modifiers vs. DC), but its exception-based design is what makes them complicated (not complex). On the other hand, take a game like Strike!, where the base mechanic is rolling a d6 and comparing it to a Skilled or Unskilled chart that both have a more diverse array of outcomes, all with the added complication of rolling with advantage or disadvantage during certain circumstances, and you have a system that has actually achieved more complexity with less complication.
The only three PbtA games I'm familiar with are Bluebeard's Bride, Kult: Divinity Lost, and Apocalypse World (in order of when I read them), so I can't speak to the full breadth of complexity the genre has to offer. Of the ones I'm familiar with, Kult is the most crunchy (most attributes, most moves, etc), and Bluebeard's Bride the least. I'd actually consider PbtA an example of low complexity but high complication, since on the one hand you're just rolling 2d6+modifiers, but you're comparing that roll to a very specific chart, and then choosing options from whatever menu it gives you. A menu that might be modified by features that aren't on the chart, and instead on your playsheet. And the less said about D. Vincent Baker's writing style and the organisation of AW's core rulebook, the better.
As I've said in other comments, rules light vs rules efficient is something I really ought to have discussed in this video. You are correct that you can take a fairly simple mechanic and stuff it full of edge cases until it becomes a nightmarish mess.
I have to disagree with the attention span point.
That has nothing to do with rules being light or heavy. If a player doesn't read the book, they look at the GM for the answer.
I personally prefer rules lite because I prefer narrative over wargamming.
I also don't like the "video game" feel of rules heavy. "I have this specific skill. I hit that button." I want my players to think more about BEING that person, not making sure their keybindings are set properly.
Asking the GM for an answer only works if the GM has enough attention span to learn and remember the rules.
I'm curious about your opinion on pbta then. It's rules light, but definitely is a "I hit my button" kind of game. Yes, there's text that says "no, it's about the conversation" but every podcast play I've ever listened to has the players performing a move every turn. They're filling in the conversation to fit hitting their special moves.
@emmettobrian1874 Soo... I looked into that and every other game I could find... I guess I should say "rules very light" because I ended up having to just make it for the table... (tldr)
players have jobs and specs, but not a focus on specific moves. Like "cook" and spec "frying pan". Does it involve a frying pan? your success chance is higher (without using +/-)
It has... let all of us focus more on solving the situation at hand instead of "what can I fit to fix the situation at hand"
@@rybromide2219 a follow up question if I may then. Do you and/or your players tend to have a specific style of story you're going for? I ask because the conversation about rules light tends to hang around genres and I have this feeling that genre emulation fills in a lot of blanks for players.
@emmettobrian1874 Style... the one we are playing is fantasy-storytelling, DnD-ish, currently. I don't see it working for like a call of cthulu style, but I also don't like that kind... I just want the "character sheet" to primarily reside in the mind of the players. I want to ask "does that make sense for your character?" and they respond by thinking it through, not looking down at a sheet.
It's all about the story and how the world evolves with their success/failure... So I guess that's the style, telling a story, because you could easily rip out all magic or crank it up to 20. /shrug
The more rules you have the less ttrpg the game will become and resemble a video game more. If you need a mechanic for everything you can do you are limiting the players agency. Having too few rules however starts to remove the game from the game.
I think combat needs a bit more crunch but otherwise i prefer fewer rules. For social situations, if a character wants to persuade someone or charm someone they actually have to do it. If your charisma is low but you rp well I will make you roll where as someone who has high charisma will just automatically succeed. If a player complains that their character are charismatic but they arent capable of role playing a charismatic or intelligent or whatever character... Well, sucks to be you :)
I set the difficulty for social checks largely based on how well the player RPs it. When a player asks, "Hey, can I persuade that guard?", I'm stubborn as an ox about making them describe _how_ they persuade the guard. Only once they do that will I decide the difficulty number and let them roll.
@@allseeingeyetrpg I dont like when a very character with very high skill in something does something with a great explanation/rp for how they do it and they then fail because of bad luck. Like a 10th level thief should never fail to pick an easy lock etc.
With your way that still remains a problem, if one regards it as a problem like I do.
@@LordOfFlies I see it as a feature, not a bug. Sometimes even the best-made speeches end up falling flat. It's a stark reminder that no matter charismatic you are as a player, and how many points you point into a persuasion skill, nobody is perfect, and of how when you're dealing with chaotic, emotional people, nothing is certain. Not everyone will like how I do things, but my players and I like it, and that's what counts.
"If a player complains that their character are charismatic but they arent capable of role playing a charismatic or intelligent or whatever character... Well, sucks to be you :)"
I am sorry, but that sounds a bit unfair. By that same logic, you should ask characters to roleplay strength checks too by doing deadlifts. At the same time, if a player who has chosen to have low charisma and persuasion skills makes a compelling and moving speech, they are not rping well, they are metagaming. Which is the exact opposite of good RPing.
Also, if the players roleplays well and has invested in persuasion, their reward is... not to use it? That seems counterintuitive.
At the same time, I believe RPGs should encourage players to play someone they aren't, so if a players wants to play a high charisma character and is not very charismatic, I'd say help them out.
"The more rules you have the less ttrpg the game will become and resemble a video game more. If you need a mechanic for everything you can do you are limiting the players agency. Having too few rules however starts to remove the game from the game."
I disagree on the manthra "too many rules = videogame". Or, at least, on the fact that it's always true. Let me explain:
Let's say I'm paying a character with a lot of strength. But all I see is a number. How strong is that number? If there is no other rule to help me out, it depends on what the players agree on, but chances are it will be close to what we all expect to be possible.
Now, let's say that the game has combat rules and barrier rules. Now I could find out that my character is strong enough to break a concrete wall with his fists. That was not something that I could expect him to do by default, but now that I know the system we agreed to play allows me to do so, I have a new tool for problem solving that opens up a lot of possibilities.
In this case, rules enhanced player agency
Another example: let's say that you have a pretty good perception score through some special mean (magic, cybernetics, whatever), and that in that game all sensory perceptions score are treated as that score + other bonuses. Now you run into the statblocks of a dog and -surprise- the dog's score for smelling is similar to yours. Great! Now whenever you are in a new room you can also ask your GM "what do I smell?" and the GM has a new avenue to give you information with. You can even use it in a proactive way. That, in my book, is a good way to make rules that let you do cool things.
Rules-light became popular because rules-heavy became unpopular is such a worthless explanation lmao
Hardly. Trends shift, and people shift their preferences with them. It's a normal human impulse. If you'd like to offer an alternative explanation, go ahead.
@@allseeingeyetrpg "trends shift" does not at all answer "why the trend has shifted."
Imagine asking why a specific historical revolution happened and my answer to you was "people change what they want out of government." It's a non-answer.
Your video had other arguments that were decent enough (low barrier to entry for both producers and consumers, the hobby gaining a more casual improv audience, etc). I just found that one explanation very lacking compared to the other bullet points.
@@LeFlamel Lower barriers to entry and more casual audiences are what made the trends shift. But most players and GMs aren't thinking about what's easy to develop, or what plays best with modern RPG audiences, they're just looking at what RPGs are out there and going "oooh, that looks fun". I take the view that people have a much more passive relationship with their media (and trends therein) than most of them would like to admit.