Quote from: Benoist;361726D&D 3rd edition: feats, spells, abilities framing their applications extremely narrowly, tactical considerations that focus on the rules themselves, and not the actual situations they are supposed to depict, a mumbo-jumbo lingo that overrides suspension of disbelief.

D&D 4th edition: 3rd edition on uber-steroids. The rules ARE the game. Immersion and suspension of disbelief are incidental, side-effects of the group's gaming style, and not an actual focus of the game's original design.

Rules-heavy systems are usually culprits in this, in the way they more-or-less impose gamism, bean-counting and other metagame considerations as an important part of the table's play time, but some rules light system certainly may detract from role-playing as well. No examples come to my mind right at the moment, but I'm sure we can find some.

I guess that to have a rules system that doesn't become an obstacle to role-playing, it should not be overwhelming in terms of size and/or minutiae, allow for some extrapolation on the part of the group, and include relatively instinctive game mechanics that, once learned, just remain in the background and are later used without putting much thought into it.

But these considerations are subjective, in the sense that each gaming group will have different requirements, different ways to digest and handle this or that rule, and use them afterwards. Like pretty much anything else having to do with RPGs.

I have a different take on some of this, though not necessarily contradictory.

1) Roleplaying, as a term, existed before our games did.  The term we use came into being because people were playing roles but with certain rules built to set a mood/create a reality around the role play.  I make this comment to specifically differentiate it from wargaming/boardgames, due to the focus of the OP.  RPGs took some of the simulationist ideas from wargaming/boardgames, but instead of narrow-scope, close-ended battles with victory conditions (as large as Axis and Allies or as small as Melee), the RPG allowed the creation of a protagonist (or a group of them) through a set of adventures.  As this matured and developed, it quickly evolved into the campaign ideal, which placed all the adventures in the same setting.  The rules of the game codified the physics behind the roleplay world, the setting, the stage of the roleplay world, but the aformentioned developmental arc from wargame to string of combats to string of adventures to campaigns(abbreviated, I admit), was part of an undirected, unconsious movement to enhance the roleplaying experience.

2) Roleplaying, as it is used by our hobby of Rolepelaying Games, is tied to the concept of immersion.  Hence, the above development of a more rounded/complete experience can be seen as steps to create a deeper immersion.  By creating a larger stage and a more multi-dimensional experience, the immersion was made more complete.  One can imagine the first steps being a few PC's staying in character while wanting to spend the treasure they had gotten from one of the earliest adventures.  And our early GM scrambling to keep up, decides to actually roleplay the shopkeepers...and a few years later, the GM is scrambling to create rules for keeps and holdings, then churches, and parishes, and ranks in the Thieve's Guilds...
These rules were all created to allow the players more dimensions to grow their characters.  Tithing rules in Ad&d certaibly had no effect on the combat or spellcasting, they were rules created in the infancy of the games to enhance the roleplay (and also balance, but that's another conversation).

3) Overdone rules can bog down a game, and decrease the intuitive nature of a game, it's true. However, the point I am leading up to (based on the OP) is that it is not just complexity that derails roleplay, it is a lack of balance in the rules.  It is certainly not complexity that hobbles the roleplaying aspects of the original melee, which is more of a boardgame, it is that the game has rules only in one dimension, combat.  
The same can be true is games that have 90% of their rules based around a single dimension (combat, magic, movement) but that give only a nod to the other aspects of play and development.  
I mean no disrespect to D&D, but I left the game before 2E because I wanted rules that had MORE balance.  Some of the rulesets I have used that have created the best roleplaying were more rules-heavy, they were just more even and created a more consistent depth of rules.
So my contention is that while poorly designed, cumbersome rulesets can bog down any game, unbalanced rulesets that have 90% of the rules in what should be 10-20% of the roleplaying game experience create games that are more similar to the 1 dimensional ancestors, wargames and boardgames.

Indeed your comments aren't contradictory to my own, Vreeg.
I actually agree with most of what you said.

The little bit that I find interesting, because it doesn't relate to my own experience, is the claim that a lack of balance in the rules (with for instance a 90 % focus on combat) bogs down the game, destroys its instinctive nature and/or becomes an obstacle to the game's immersion.

I can certainly see it as true for some (many) gamers out there. I've seen it happen. After all, many of my French gamer friends don't like D&D to this day precisely for this reason - "it's only about combats, it doesn't even have [insert rule of some other game here]", and so on, so forth.

If the game is instinctive in its rules, it's in part to allow the players of the game to come up with resolution mechanics on the fly, as they play. This contradicts your point to some extent, in the sense that if few areas are covered in the rules, it is also welcome, by the rules' very design, to expand on them in areas covered by the gaming group through their campaign and adventures.

Second, though I can see how D&D may be considered a culprit in this, I think that 3rd edition was a great step forward for the game in this regard, with the introduction of a non-optional, fully integrated Skills system, first, and with the addition of the Concept of Feats, which can be declined in any number of non-combat ways.

4th Edition, ironically, was a step backwards in this regard, because it narrows the focus of the game on a very specific game experience. I guess it's a good example of my point earlier: that rules-heavy doesn't necessarily mean "more of an obstacle to role-playing". I'd argue that 3rd ed is more rules-heavy, but less of a potential obstacle to role-playing, than 4e is.

Quote from: BenoistThe little bit that I find interesting, because it doesn't relate to my own experience, is the claim that a lack of balance in the rules (with for instance a 90 % focus on combat) bogs down the game, destroys its instinctive nature and/or becomes an obstacle to the game's immersion.

Well, I never said that, my friend.  
I did pack way too much into some of those sentences, as I am writing this while doing some consulting.  I said complexity and overdone rules can bog down a game, since I don't think that balance is always or only the issue.  Bad rules can screw things up all by themselves...

I do say, however, that lack of balance is antithetical to roleplaying and immersion, since the OP asked about what gets in the way of Roleplaying.

Quote from: Benoist;361940I'd argue that 3rd ed is more rules-heavy, but less of a potential obstacle to role-playing, than 4e is.

I would argue the opposite, citing that the ultimate obstacle a game can create for role-playing  is having a rule set that is so complex that it keeps me from ever taking it to the table. I bought 3.0 out of curiosity, after a break from RPGs (as did a couple of my friends); not only did I never play the game, it turned me off to RPGs in general for another couple of years. For me, seeing 3.0 was an experience similar to the groundhog seeing his own shadow. With 4e we were playing inside of week. I'm not using it now, but I like it far more 3.x, and I'd play it again. It's fun. I'm more likely to play 1e than I am to play 3.x, and I fucking hate 1e with hateful fucking hate.

Quote from: Aos;361962I would argue the opposite, citing that the ultimate obstacle a game can create for role-playing  is having a rule set that is so complex that it keeps me from ever taking it to the table. I bought 3.0 out of curiosity, after a break from RPGs (as did a couple of my friends); not only did I never play the game, it turned me off to RPGs in general for another couple of years. For me, seeing 3.0 was an experience similar to the groundhog seeing his own shadow. With 4e we were playing inside of week. I'm not using it now, but I like it far more 3.x, and I'd play it again. It's fun. I'm more likely to play 1e than I am to play 3.x, and I fucking hate 1e with hateful fucking hate.

From that point of view (a rules set so disheartening that you wouldn't even bring it to the table to begin with), you sure can make that claim. I'm sure your experience isn't isolated either.

I, however, do believe that many players didn't feel that way about the game, in the sense that its mechanical aspects provided them with many tools to build pretty much whatever they wanted out of it. The success of 3e itself and the countless OGL spinoffs and houserules that sprang to life from it are proof of that, IMO.

4e, however, provides a much more focused game play. What with the skills taken off the game, the tactical movement and effects the mechanics focus on, etc. I'm not saying that 4e can't be satisfying to some people: it very obviously is. For the record, I'm not making the stupid claim that it wouldn't be a role-playing game either. What I'm saying is that I believe 4e can be more detrimental to role-playing than 3e is. Experiences do vary, of course.

Also for the record, I'm a huge fan of 1e. I place 1e and 0e on the same pedestal of D&D role-playing, personally, though I would use these systems with different groups and inclinations. They are not built with the same people in mind, IMO. Next I would place 3e, with its design as a gigantic (though oft intimidating) unified toolbox helping you build pretty much anything you want without rebuilding the system from the ground up. Next on my preference list would be 2e, which is mechanically inferior to its parent, 1e, and is just an example of weak, diluted design in all respects, IMO. I would place 4e dead last, as it doesn't even fit my idea of what D&D is - it's not even weak design, IMO, but wrong design, plain and simple.

Quote from: VreegWell, I never said that, my friend.
I did pack way too much into some of those sentences, as I am writing this while doing some consulting. I said complexity and overdone rules can bog down a game, since I don't think that balance is always or only the issue. Bad rules can screw things up all by themselves...

I do say, however, that lack of balance is antithetical to roleplaying and immersion, since the OP asked about what gets in the way of Roleplaying.

I suspected something of a misunderstanding on my part. So what you're saying is that the way a system would focus solely on this or that area of design may be detrimental to role-playing. Correct?

Quote from: Benoist;361966Also for the record, I'm a huge fan of 1e. I place 1e and 0e on the same pedestal of D&D role-playing, personally, though I would use these systems with different groups and inclinations. They are not built with the same people in mind, IMO. Next I would place 3e, with its design as a gigantic (though oft intimidating) unified toolbox helping you build pretty much anything you want without rebuilding the system from the ground up. Next on my preference list would be 2e, which is inferior in every mechanical respect to its parent, 1e, in my opinion, and is just weak in all respects, IMO. I would place 4e dead last, as it doesn't even fit my idea of what D&D is.

1e hits my sour spot between complexity and simplicity, and I don't feel that the additional complexity adds to the game for me. That and I have some anti-nostalgia regarding it.
As for what is or isn't D&D, well that's just something I don't really care about and never have.

Quote from: Aos;3619691e hits my sour spot between complexity and simplicity, and I don't feel that the additional complexity adds to the game for me. That and I have some anti-nostalgia regarding it.
As for what is or isn't D&D, well that's just something I don't really care about and never have.

All completely valid ways of looking at it. I understand.

Update your blog, fool- not that I can talk.

Quote from: Aos;361972Update your blog, fool- not that I can talk.

Christ. I need to.