Quote from: Pierce InverarityOD&D / 1E: performative approach: rules are designed to be worked into shape (house rules, imagination-implementation)
Basic and C&C: passive approach: rules are desgned to be played out of the box (their simplicity is deceptive--these are more complete games than the above)

That looks sound, but clearly C&C is designed to also appeal to people who like to houserule stuff.  You can play it as is, but you'd hardly know it from the proliferation of variants on the internet, in the Crusader magazine, etc.  And Moldvay's Basic directly addresses the concept of making up on-the-fly resolutions to situations not directly handled by the rules, such as the infamous "I jump off the ledge!" example.

Jeff, I don't know the C&C scene, but I'm guessing that since C&C has a unified task res, their houserules are working within that framework? Filling in the blanks / expanding on some implication? In that sense C&C is not "unfinished" the way OD&D/1E are (if I'm right about that).

How what I said about Moldvay fits in there: I have no idea.

Would a three-tier approach to systems be appropriate? I.e.:
- games for beginners which are relatively light on rules, set in stone, with a premise that is easy to grasp and run with;
- games with complex rules and supporting a variety of play styles (incoherent in Forge-speak), but less codified and relatively open to modification, especially through highlighting different aspects; and
- games which again have a looser framework, but few instructions and very open to beating into your own preferred shape.

...just throwing ideas into the arena to see if the lions tear them apart.

Tiered games don't work from a purely economical perspective. Either the lower-tier games are crippled or inhibit progress to the higher tiers.

In general, tiers don't work. Remember the Microsoft Office versions where unjused menu items disappeared?

Quote from: SosthenesIn general, tiers don't work. Remember the Microsoft Office versions where unjused menu items disappeared?

Remember them?  I've still got that at work.  Drives me nucking futz.

Pierce, you're right that you don't see a lot of people screwing with the C&C core mechanics.  Most house rules I've seen alter incidentals like additional class or race choices, or bolt on to the combat system or spell system.

And my guess is that while Holmes' Basic D&D might have been a source of much tinkering, I would be surprised to see a lot of fiddling with later versions.  The Basic game became tighter with each passing iteration after that.

So your fundamental point remains, but I just don't think the distinction is a stark binary.  I see more of a continuum where OD&D sits on the extreme of "must be modded to make coherent" and the RC is at the opposite end of "complete but easy to tinker with".

It would be fruitful to highlight which areas should be well defined, and which are to be ad-hoc-ruled in the specific case.

Cores of relevance and all that.

The Hitpoints/ Wound Levels are always untinkered with, on an ad-hoc basis, are they?

Actions? Skills?

That´s where you have to position yourself in the continuum. Just as the notion of thiif skills did. That was very fruitful.

Blathering about the abstract won´t really bring us progress.