Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Rules-Lite VS "Crunchy" TTRPG Systems
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 9298674" data-attributes="member: 6779310"><p>[USER=1008]@SableWyvern[/USER]</p><p>My view on trust is that I categorize trust in multiple fields...</p><p>My buddy RMQ I can trust with my car, i can trust with my phone, but I can't trust him to pay back $5... And his approach to rules is much too lax for me as a player to be comfortable; I can trust him to piss me off when he's the GM, so I haven't played in a game he's run since 1990...</p><p>My former neighbor MM, I can trust him with gaming books for up to a week. But I can't trust him to run the game he claims to run, neither to use the rules claimed, nor to be fair. I also cannot trust him to actually play the species in game by the rules of that campaign instead of what he thinks they should be. So, he's not been in one of my games since 3 sessions in, and yet, he has allowed me to proctor character gen for his Rolemaster game. And 2-3 of his 4-7 players would be generating new RM characters weekly. I can, however, trust him with "$20 until payday"...</p><p></p><p>When it comes to GMing, I see the rules as a contract. Since most don't, I have to assume they're lying about the rules in force until I see that they're using the rules agreed upon. At which point, I start to extend a little trust. The more I see the game being handled in a manner I approve of the more trust I have in that GM.</p><p>If I don't play with people I don't trust, I can't get to trusting them, and that becomes a block to not being behind the shield.</p><p>And I roll in the open so players can see what I'm doing, unless the rules explicitly call for hidden rolls, or the players complain about it unanimously. (I had players complain about me rolling in the open in a D&D 5 adventure at a con. Not all. I pointed out that very few rolls are required to be hidden.)</p><p>I don't expect players to trust me on rules; I'm fine with limited in-session or more deep post-session discussion of rules... because I see the rules as a contract.</p><p>one of the other users round here has first hand experience of me retconning because I mishandled a rule, and of me not retconning, but correcting my interpretation for later use... (which is determined by whether or not the mishandle is in player favor. If it was, no retcon. )</p><p></p><p>So, when I get to play, I don't expect to trust the GM to use the rules appropriately nor to be fair until I've experienced their GMing. One of the players in my weekly store game I'd not want to play in their game - they're at the mix-n-match D&D+Rifts+something else in a fluid hybrid of ever changing rules... that would drive me off the tall end of the cliff...</p><p></p><p>But this is a tangent.</p><p>bringing it back towards rules vs crunch...</p><p></p><p>Some of the crunchiest games I've run, ones where the mechanics are in your face ALL THE «bleep»ing time, have been fairly simple rulesets...</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">D&D BX played the way we played in the 80's — a narrative wargame of dungeon clearance, completely unlike what several OSR types publishers of younger generations claim to think was standard in 1981...</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Rolemaster: the core mechanic is simple; the tables to apply it across a wide field of endeavors are only 2 pages for non-attack non-spell actions most of the time. But the tables for combat and magic make it a lot of referencing. SImilarly Spacemaster, MERP, and Cyberspace.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Starships and Spacemen - it's got five simple mechanics of player note, and they're used a lot:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">1d20 ≤ Attribute, (to hit ranged and most other att/skill uses)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">1d6+Attribute (melee) opposed with results from a short table,</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">spending ship's power (to do a variety of things)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">marking damage against ST, until 0, when you die.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">using a computer to ask 1d6 questions (+1 more if a science officer) of either yes/no or of single number</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">MegaTraveller - the task system is used a lot, and it's the core mechanic of the game. Combat adds 12 pages of equipment tables, and 3 pages of actual combat mechanics. Plus the 6 pages of task system. (The earlier version for use with CT had a 2 page presence</li> </ul><p>To answer [USER=177]@Umbran[/USER] 's question about "Standard Dungeon Raiding Parties" - the type of party encouraged by having adventures that have little story and lots of things to kill remorselessly, often fueled by GM misinterpreting "Defeat" as "force to surrender or die" and the assorted advice in Dragon in the early 80's. And it's the type of party that KODT features as the archetypal (yet exaggerated) humorously bad groups. A good number of DDAL adventures for seasons 1-3 were of the "Kill them all and take their stuff" mode of play; it's a style I've heard of anecdotally from most of the free world and all generations.</p><p></p><p>It certainly was a supported style. It wasn't the only style of the era, either, but it was, due to access, the style of D&D I was able to encounter; Traveller lead me to story mattering.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="aramis erak, post: 9298674, member: 6779310"] [USER=1008]@SableWyvern[/USER] My view on trust is that I categorize trust in multiple fields... My buddy RMQ I can trust with my car, i can trust with my phone, but I can't trust him to pay back $5... And his approach to rules is much too lax for me as a player to be comfortable; I can trust him to piss me off when he's the GM, so I haven't played in a game he's run since 1990... My former neighbor MM, I can trust him with gaming books for up to a week. But I can't trust him to run the game he claims to run, neither to use the rules claimed, nor to be fair. I also cannot trust him to actually play the species in game by the rules of that campaign instead of what he thinks they should be. So, he's not been in one of my games since 3 sessions in, and yet, he has allowed me to proctor character gen for his Rolemaster game. And 2-3 of his 4-7 players would be generating new RM characters weekly. I can, however, trust him with "$20 until payday"... When it comes to GMing, I see the rules as a contract. Since most don't, I have to assume they're lying about the rules in force until I see that they're using the rules agreed upon. At which point, I start to extend a little trust. The more I see the game being handled in a manner I approve of the more trust I have in that GM. If I don't play with people I don't trust, I can't get to trusting them, and that becomes a block to not being behind the shield. And I roll in the open so players can see what I'm doing, unless the rules explicitly call for hidden rolls, or the players complain about it unanimously. (I had players complain about me rolling in the open in a D&D 5 adventure at a con. Not all. I pointed out that very few rolls are required to be hidden.) I don't expect players to trust me on rules; I'm fine with limited in-session or more deep post-session discussion of rules... because I see the rules as a contract. one of the other users round here has first hand experience of me retconning because I mishandled a rule, and of me not retconning, but correcting my interpretation for later use... (which is determined by whether or not the mishandle is in player favor. If it was, no retcon. ) So, when I get to play, I don't expect to trust the GM to use the rules appropriately nor to be fair until I've experienced their GMing. One of the players in my weekly store game I'd not want to play in their game - they're at the mix-n-match D&D+Rifts+something else in a fluid hybrid of ever changing rules... that would drive me off the tall end of the cliff... But this is a tangent. bringing it back towards rules vs crunch... Some of the crunchiest games I've run, ones where the mechanics are in your face ALL THE «bleep»ing time, have been fairly simple rulesets... [LIST] [*]D&D BX played the way we played in the 80's — a narrative wargame of dungeon clearance, completely unlike what several OSR types publishers of younger generations claim to think was standard in 1981... [*]Rolemaster: the core mechanic is simple; the tables to apply it across a wide field of endeavors are only 2 pages for non-attack non-spell actions most of the time. But the tables for combat and magic make it a lot of referencing. SImilarly Spacemaster, MERP, and Cyberspace. [*]Starships and Spacemen - it's got five simple mechanics of player note, and they're used a lot: [LIST] [*]1d20 ≤ Attribute, (to hit ranged and most other att/skill uses) [*]1d6+Attribute (melee) opposed with results from a short table, [*]spending ship's power (to do a variety of things) [*]marking damage against ST, until 0, when you die. [*]using a computer to ask 1d6 questions (+1 more if a science officer) of either yes/no or of single number [/LIST] [*]MegaTraveller - the task system is used a lot, and it's the core mechanic of the game. Combat adds 12 pages of equipment tables, and 3 pages of actual combat mechanics. Plus the 6 pages of task system. (The earlier version for use with CT had a 2 page presence [/LIST] To answer [USER=177]@Umbran[/USER] 's question about "Standard Dungeon Raiding Parties" - the type of party encouraged by having adventures that have little story and lots of things to kill remorselessly, often fueled by GM misinterpreting "Defeat" as "force to surrender or die" and the assorted advice in Dragon in the early 80's. And it's the type of party that KODT features as the archetypal (yet exaggerated) humorously bad groups. A good number of DDAL adventures for seasons 1-3 were of the "Kill them all and take their stuff" mode of play; it's a style I've heard of anecdotally from most of the free world and all generations. It certainly was a supported style. It wasn't the only style of the era, either, but it was, due to access, the style of D&D I was able to encounter; Traveller lead me to story mattering. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Rules-Lite VS "Crunchy" TTRPG Systems
Top