Quote from: Spike;367388My experiences as a GM have taught me this: As a GM I'd rather have rules that I then (mostly) ignore than not have the rules and have to make up shit to fill in the gaps.

A thousand times this. It is exactly what happened with Fate for me - I felt so much was left out (despite pages and pages of examples and such not) that I felt like my rulings on stuff were floating around in the air somewhere.

So I resolved to go back to GURPS, and, as you say, just use the bits I want, as needed. Maybe won't use it all (in fact, I can guarantee it), but if I DO want it, it's there.

I started off excited by Spirit of the Century. After reading most of it, I decided that I'd never play it. It felt like it had too much stuff in the wrong places and not enough in others. The concept of a simple system where background and personality actually affects the mechanics was appealing and I like the free Fate rules ok but it felt like it hadn't been playtested by enough different types of groups.
 
It's really not a good example for judging light or even medium games.  
 
A common example of a really light game is Risus.  It breaks down but at least it's quick and makes sense.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;367351I don't need a rule for everything, but I think "rules-lite" (or light, whatever) is bullshit. Once you remove enough rules, you also remove the game, and without the game you might as well just hand out community theater improv exercises.

Who decides when there are enough "rules", let alone "too much"?  Is Microlite20 not a game?

I can understand you not being able to improvise systems on the fly using a simple base, but your limitations are your own responsibility.

Quote from: Peregrin;367402Who decides when there are enough "rules", let alone "too much"?  Is Microlite20 not a game?

I can understand you not being able to improvise systems on the fly using a simple base, but your limitations are your own responsibility.

Oh, I can improvise until the cows come home, but the trick is to provide a game that everyone knows before they show up for the evening.

I don't have an opinion on Microlite20.

Quote from: Mencelus;367398Basically, the problem was Aspects - they are so loose, even when refined by group agreement, that they were easy to use almost anywhere. Couple this with the fact that all Aspects give the exact same mechanical effect, and I feel everything was just sort of bland. Blah.

I've only ran one session of FATE 3.0 (Starblazer Adventures) but I tend to agree with you on Aspects. It's been touted as the best thing since sliced bread, and I've found Aspects (and the attending sub-system of tagging, invoking, etc.) clever in theory, but ultimately fairly pedestrian in practice. Player A can take "Stronger Than An Elephant On PCP" and Player B takes "Yes, I've Been Working Out, Can You Tell?" and it's the precise same Aspect, on account of all Aspects having been created equal.

As for Aspects vs. Stunts, I feel Diaspora better refines this split, with three sharply demarcated "families" of Stunts: (1) own a thing (e.g. a spaceship); (2) substitute one skill for other in certain circumstances (e.g. use Might instead of Fists for unarmed combat); and (3) "military grade" skill use (doing something highly specialized within that skill, e.g. the ability to ride a Dune sandworm would be a "military grade" Animal Handling stunt).

And on the subject of skills, I find the Diaspora's skill list better than the one in Starblazer Adventures, but not by a large margin. I actually find both very fitting for the "I want to be Apex Guy" character creation philosophy.

Even if you, like me, live overseas and can't afford Diaspora by way of Lulu, you should totally check out the Diaspora SRD. The people behind the game have a solid grasp on what makes FATE tick.

Quote from: The Butcher;367407Even if you, like me, live overseas and can't afford Diaspora by way of Lulu, you should totally check out the Diaspora SRD. The people behind the game have a solid grasp on what makes FATE tick.

Actually I have it, paid the hideous expense to get it sent here to Hungary, and ended up liking it but noting the same issues as in SOTC. I've actually already found a buyer for it - just because I can't use it doesn't mean someone else can't!

Nope, haven't had any trouble running the light games I have, which are GDi and Microlite20. I am thinking of trying out Mini6 with the "Zombies ate my Best Man" attachment because my girlfriend's 16yo and his buddy are huge zombie movie/video-game fans. I'm also exploring the what appears to be pretty awesome so far Ancient Odysseys, and I'm very hopefully it's as fun and easy to use as it seems to be.

I personally think a system needs to be just detailed enough so that the player characters are meaningfully different between each other but no more. As a player and even more as a GM I find heavy rules are just a buzz kill and my general feeling is that lead a player towards playing the system rather than playing the character.

Just to make an example. A system can define each every weapon in a lot of detail, based on real world research and providing for each one individual stats. Another system might simply state all weapons do 1d6 damage.

If you play the first system, the player has to learn the weapons rules and make choices based on their effectiveness.

If you play the second game, you can just choose what feels right of the character or simply looked cool in that action movie you saw last night, safe in the knowledge that you won't be penalised for it.

Now there is plenty of room for us all in this hobby, but I am firmly in favour of the latter. Roleplaying games are the stuff of blockbuster movies and comic books for me; why would I want it tainted with unnecessary and unfun details?

Incidentally, SotC is NOT rules light. Granted it's not GURPS or the Hero system, but it's still pretty detailed in its own way. And character creation is not a breeze. By the time you've chosen and ranked all your skills (with all the Stunts and prerequisites to said the Stunts) created all your Aspects, you've done a days work. I just finished playing a SotC Dune campaign and I could see the stress on the GM's face when he had to improvise NPCs, giving them unique Aspects (because of course various character abilities revolve around revealing hidden Aspects of NPCs).

Quote from: Sigmund;367413I am thinking of trying out Mini6 with the "Zombies ate my Best Man" attachment because my girlfriend's 16yo ...

I initially read that as "because my girfriend is 16 years old" which is not the sort of thing that people typically brag about on the internet.
 
Then it all made sense on the 2nd reading.

I like games that are light from the players' perspective -- where everything they need to know about their character can be recorded on one side of a single sheet of paper (and if it fits on a 3x5 index card even better), the basics of the game can be explained in 5 minutes, and a starting character can be created in no more than 15. IMO the players shouldn't ever really be required to read a rulebook.

As a GM I prefer games that are more rules-medium (e.g. AD&D, RuneQuest, Traveller) and contain a fair number of examples and established procedures and precedents for common situations so I'm not left completely to my own devices and forced to create or adjudicate everything, but which are also loose enough that in the heat of play I can use my judgment in place of the written rules without "breaking" the game.

Quote from: Nicephorus;367435I initially read that as "because my girfriend is 16 years old" which is not the sort of thing that people typically brag about on the internet.
 
Then it all made sense on the 2nd reading.

I'm glad it became clear to you

Rules-heavy games bore me to tears. I have tried them, in good faith, only to find that they are FAIL.

Rules-light, I have no issues with. But rules-medium, or what in my estimation amounts to that, is what I mostly prefer.

My main concern is not the number of rules, but their rationalisation and flow. I play some fairly rules-heavy games (D&D 3.x/D20, D&D 4, various iterations of BRP), but I'm not bothered so long as the rules work in a consistent way and can be used without needing to consult anything else most of the time (lots of internal tables, for example).

One of my main problems with Shadowrun 4e, for example, which I tend to think of as about as complicated at D&D 3.5 to play, is that it's almost impossible to remember the huge number of modifiers applied to any roll (especially combat rolls), which means lots of time flipping around and looking things up in the book. We had three copies so that we could keep it open to specific sections, and we still got bogged down because we needed to reference so many different sections of the book at any time.

In practice, we just stopped doing that and eyeballed it, which was better because the modifiers are stupid anyhow (it is almost impossible for a well-built starting PC to shoot at and miss someone with 90% cover because the penalties are so low compared to the size of the dice pools).

I really disliked having to look things up in AD&D 2e constantly, which was why I stopped playing it back in the mid 90's and took up Heavy Gear, Alternity and World of Darkness games instead.

By contrast, BRP & variants, which I've been interested in for a little over a year now, seems much simpler, even in its more complex iterations like MRQ2. That's because it's almost entirely rolling percentile dice, with only a few tables to consult (hit locations, fumbles, the resistance table) and everything works in pretty much the same way.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;367552(it is almost impossible for a well-built starting PC to shoot at and miss someone with 90% cover because the penalties are so low compared to the size of the dice pools).

.

I have to laugh at this.



I am not about to suggest you are WRONG about the math, so don't get all het up about that, now.

Most games, and virtually all the successful ones, have obscenely low 'wiff factors'. Games with REALISTIC combat numbers are exceedingly rare and mostly fail.

This has nothing to do with realism and everything to do with player psychology. People hate to miss, and we frequently consider a game broken if you miss far more than you hit... even if the other guy is in 90% cover.

Don't hate the game, hate the player.

Quote from: Spike;367659Don't hate the game, hate the player.

I hate you.  Am I good?

!i!