How "rules light" is your 3.5 game?

[Ozreth]

In light of the "I hate grids", "throw the book out the window" and a few other similar threads, lets just talk about who purposefully uses a lighter version of the system and how they do it.

Some background. I first played d&d around 2003 and fell in love. Looking back we didn't do a single thing right. I mean nothing at all. But I'll tell you it was some of the most fun gaming I ever had. As the years went by I tried and tried to pick up on all the rules and tried even harder to remember them while DMing, but I still don't quite have it like a lot of people do and lately I've realized that I don't really care to. I never could get into the "crunch" side of things. I kinda wish I could, but when I come to forums I tend to skip over any thread that has to do with builds or numbers and skip straight to the fluff stuff and peoples stories about adventuring.

I'm slowly working up to running my first 2e game for just this reason. I'm by no means ditching 3.5, but I am excited to run a game that has less emphasis on, well, everything it seems ha. And in my 3.5 games I am going to map things out less and less and not pay as much attention to the nitty gritty details. One of my players knows the game extremely well and tends to stop the game often to point things out, or scoffs at me when he knows I am running a monster incorrectly. Luckily we are good enough friends that I am just going to tell him to shove it. He can deal with some inconsistencies or play elsewhere : )

So, to the point, what rules have you dropped in your games? Do you let things a lot of things slide or have you found that if you are going to ignore many of the things that 3.5 is known for and built upon you might as well play a different version?

[Gensh]

I've retained attack rolls, saving throws, and the like...not much else. There are no longer individual skill points, +skill feats/toughness. Bards have musical instruments attached to their weapons so they don't complain about being bored while bardic music is active. There are a lot of changes. Of course, the strongest character to date (barring that one tainted scholar :smallsigh:) has been a straight core monk, so it's not like I have to worry about keeping balance, just keeping the players entertained.

[Ozreth]

Whoa, sounds like you dumped a lot, I like it : )
Do all of your players prefer it this way?

[Godskook]

Considering I'm of the "and the stats tell the story" school* of thought, a rules heavy system is quite required. A man with power attack is a strong and even harder-hitting, while a bard with snowflake wardance and twf is an elegant, dextrous and nearly pompous swordsman, reminding myself of one Archibold Cunningham (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUtRuONyabY)

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I like rules heavy because I get a better feel of the game. To me, the abstraction that rules light systems (including homebrewed 3e) generates is far more restrictive than bog-standard 3.5's rules heavy baggage. For me, if I'm asked to play a system with fewer rules, I prefer to go all the way and play free form.

[DeltaEmil]

I've been implementing the idea of giving my monsters some unique or new attack abilities inspired and similar to those they get in 4th edition.
Combat becomes a lot more fun and fluid when the creatures attack with swift and immediate actions, use different standard actions than a simple melee attack or a spell, and have strange traits that don't have to be replicated by existing feats, maneuvers and spells.
In most cases, the abilities are even weaker than the originals (which suits me quite fine), as long as they have differing effects that make combat a little bit more unpredictable, without being assinine and shutting down the player characters. So nothing that borders on save-or-die. Only damage with rider-effects at best (mostly short-term debuffs or the sickening effect).
Of course, some spells are still used by monsters, just so that dispel magic or counterspelling has still its (limited but still good-to-have-moment) use.

For example, a modified nightwalker has the ability to shoot a weak-ass cold energy ray (jokingly called by everyone as necro-laser) that can knock the target back a few squares (like damage x 5 feet) and instill a frightening effect as a swift action (replacing finger of death and evil gaze), can summon a small horde of undead like blackwings and mohrgs or deadborn vultures (their disease attack being replaced by a sickening attack that can only be used if they flank an enemy) instead of ability score draining or damaging garbage like shadows, wraiths and allips, and if needed, absorb them back and gaining temporary hit points once per combat.

Or a glabrezu that has the indirect power to make anybody teleport a few meters that uses spells, spell-like or supernatural abilities. And if an enemy teleports (in the worst case adjacent to the glabrezu - it's kinda randomly determined), the glabrezu gains a 1-round rage-like effect as an immediate action, so that it gets an incentive to go melee upon the player characters, instead of spamming reverse gravity, mirror image or dispel magic as a standard action while shooting some weak eldritch blast with a swift action.

And there's of course a made-up colossal dire penguin that is ultra-slow on the surface, but shoots like a missile out from the water and can clasp its wings together to make a deafening thunder-sound. The goal being that the players ignore it first when they see that the movement rate of the colossal dire penguin is only a measly 10", and makes silly penguin noises... until it suddenly turns into the deranged love-child of the shark in "Jaws" and a killer-whale, thundering them down with the might of Thor, Zeus, Talos and whatever thunder god there is in D&D... while still making silly penguin noises...

Stuff like that. Become creative with monster powers. Monsters are a tool for game moderators to make memorable cool fights with flashy effects in my opinion.

I just have to come up with useful terrain. Incorporating falling castle towers and fighting in a burning inn on a beam that will shortly break down is something I need to figure out how it can be an advantage and a disadvantage for both player characters and monsters. Or at least look cool in the minds of my fellow players.

[Roderick_BR]

I just keep enough of the rules to keep it a game, rather than just people sitting around telling stories (nothing wrong with that, but when I want a game, I play a game).

That said. Hmm... my group never used emcumbrance rules. In fact, I don't know anyone that ever used. Skills are more a background thing, since we rarely use it other than Listen/Move Silently rolls.

Back in AD&D, we never rolled saving throws for monsters, and we never used monster with attacks that required saving throws, so it was pretty much forgotten too, until 3.0, where it became a bit more necessary because of all the spellcasting cheese.

No grids (we tried, didn't work out, specially because we either forgot them, or the hyper-active player kept moving them around).

Everything else came as an need to know basis, or we made stuff up.

Edit: Terrain penalties. Heck, we hardly kept track of movement at all. We just remembered that the dwarf, gnome, and halfling ran slower.

[bokodasu]

When I want to play a rules-light game, I play FUDGE. When I want to play the charbuilder game, I play D&D (or GURPS, if I don't want D&D-specific fantasy). The right tool for the job, and all that.

I actually have a homebrew FUDGE-based system that handles all the important D&D stuff, in 8 pages of rules. So I can have all the flavor without the crunch, if I want, but if people aren't coming to the table with the same game in their heads, it's trickier. ("I pull out my lightsaber!" "Dude, there's no lightsabers in Greyhawk." "Says who? It's not in the rules!")

[Earthwalker]

When running games I generally run most games rules light.
I play DnD 3.5 without a grid and try to make sure all my players can still use all their abilities. I have never run things past lvl 10 so I have less to worry about in terms of game breaking spells.

My rules knowledge for most systems we play is usualy the highest, or rather tied highest but in no way do I have good rules fu. When Gming they trust me not to cheat them on rules and I trust them to not break the game. The main purpose of the rules is to present a consistant world so the players know what they are capable of. If I can ignore some rules and it won’t effect the players knowledge of the world I will ignore them.

I do have to say it sometimes feels that some people on these boards play a game where player rules knowledge is the most important factor, and are in an arms race with the GM over finding new attacks and counters. I never want to be involved with something like that.

[Myth]

I always go with the rules. The one major thing I do is not giving out XP with a tea spoon. I am more of a "level up and give them some XP to burn on stuff" kind of DM. Everything else I like. Well maybe the mutliclass restrictions are a bit dumb. Sure, restrict Paladins because they are so awesome anyway :smallconfused:

[Warlawk]

We tend to use most rules, but do not use a grid. Our DM just makes sure to have a solid description of how things start in combat as far as positioning goes, and we just wing it. It works well and everyone is used to it since we have been gaming together for close to 20 years for the core of our group.

We tend to play loose with encumbrance. Everyone is aware of it, and keeps a rough eye on the weight they carry, but we generally don't track every pound unless it becomes directly relevant for some reason. Spell components that are not expensive and noteworthy tend to get glossed over in a general expenditure of XX gold for generic components in each major town visit. Overland travel often gets this kind of treatment as well instead of calculating out exact overland move rates and terrains, we usually just estimate, and it works out fine.

[Gensh]

Whoa, sounds like you dumped a lot, I like it : )
Do all of your players prefer it this way?

Yeah. None of them care for system mastery at all. Or even the basics. They open the Player's Handbook and see "monk...you know, I really feel like playing Roman centurion Bruce Lee this game," not "wow...slow fall is useless." These are the guys that WotC actually wrote the game for. When I asked the party if they wanted to multiclass during my first game, they said they just wanted to get on with the game.

Slaying the gods in the name of the Serpent Prince was far more important than spending an hour flipping through books to gain some arbitrary set of abilities. They didn't come for D&D, they came for a game that let them do the sorts of awesome cinematic things that video games wouldn't let them do. It's still not a good idea to punch a black hole, though.

[Curmudgeon]

"Rules light" means you're removing control from the players and giving it to the DM. The DM gets to tell the story, and the PCs are just bit players to fill up the stage. :mad:

[DeltaEmil]

Eh, as long as the players have the power to derail any plot, be silly when they should be serious, be obnoxius when annoyed by the gm, not appearing for the drama-llama-ination of the gm or punch the gm in the face for being obnoxius and unfun to play with, I doubt that players will be puppets for any control-freak gm with a drama-llama-inated streak.

[EccentricCircle]

In general I tend to favour a rules light aproach, but don't actively "drop" much from the game so much as just not worrying too much about some things. I generally gloss over encumberance, as that can really be handeled by players thinking responsibly about what they are carrying, a rope, some spare knives and a bag of supplies is probably ok, six anvils isn't. unless of course they have a bag of holding.

I also tend to avoid giving out Xp for kills. as I feel that encourages a hack and slash aproach to adventuring. I think that leveling up should be more about learning and practiceing skills, but haven't tried to houserule any specific mechanic for this. I think that awarding a level (or in some cases a certain amount of Xp at the end of each chapter or adventure works fine)

when adjudicating the game I always feel that the story is more important than the rules and so am more inclined to say "yeah, that sounds about right" or "I don't think so sorry" than to get bogged down in rules discussion or take ages flicking through rule books or arguing with players.
I'd say that that is fundamentally what a DM is for and what makes roleplaying games different from computer games and the like.

as an aside I think that the Alignment system can be applied to DM's as well as to characters. with the Moral Axis (Good vs Evil) refering to how much on the players side a DM is, and the Ethical Axis (Law vs Chaos) refering to how much they tend to stick to the rules. a Lawful good DM is generally on the players side, but does everything by the book. while a Neutral Evil DM is the sort that considers it a tactical excercise to get as many total party kills as possible.

I consider myself to be a Chaotic Good DM, although some of my Players might put my alignment as Chaotic Neutral...

[Curmudgeon]

I doubt that players will be puppets for any control-freak gm with a drama-llama-inated streak.
You're only looking at it from one perspective. The players also don't have the control to actively achieve goals (unless their goals are to just joke around rather than have significance in the events around them). In a "rules light" setting there's no way to obtain information, track down enemies, sneak into places, and execute mayhem except at the DM's whim. Rules heavy means the players can read how the system works and know how to make their characters achieve such goals.

[DeltaEmil]

It's still the gm who decides if the rolls are even used in a specific situation. And it's still the players who decide if they want to participate in the shenanigans of the gm - if their character is even capable of doing so, because after all, fighters drool, while wizards rule and stuff like that. There is nothing more pathetic than having a mundane character who is supposed to be good at a thing and has been moderately optimized at it and is now bad at other things still failing because of a bad roll, or when the situations come up where he's not been optimized at.

The alternative for rolling gather-information checks is talking with the gm, who for this situation will pretend to be a girly girl looking for her big sister that has been kidnapped by shadowgoblins, or an angel of doom and destruction who knows eldritch lore stuff about the upcoming apocalypse. And that should be fun for everybody involved.

Rolling the dices outside of combat situations should only be for stuff that nobody actually wants to do or play out.

[randomhero00]

My game I DM is very rules light. Its almost all roleplay. Plenty of combat, but I push them to their limits then cheat, and let them succeed. Makes for a good game if you have players that like that.

The game I play in is middle of the ground rules. Not really rules lite, not really rules heavy.

[Psyx]

I don't like running D&D because it's too rules heavy for a heroic fast-paced game, and too abstract for a gritty game. It manages to be overly complex while being not at all 'realistic'.

I play a couple of other games though... one which uses all the rules, all the books, all the blag and a battle grid. It's still 'fun' rather than being overly competitive and over-the-top, but it can be a little slow and rather mechanical and combat-driven. The only rules changes the GM has is a background skills table for some free skill points and dropping multi-classing XP penalties.

The other 3.5 game I play in is very different. We level when the GM tells us and use the 3.5 combat system with no grid. The skill system has been replaced with the old SWd6 system, with stats of 12=1d, 14=2d et al. And then we get XP each week for skills, dice rolls and to buy additional feats. It's a major re-write, but the better skill system is worth it. Other than that the GM does play pretty fast and loose with the rules when he wants to.



the abstraction that rules light systems ...

/puzzled

I find D&D quite a paradox. On one hand, it's VERY rules heavy.
On the other, it's possibly THE most abstract RPG I've seen. I can't think of a single system that handles everything from wounds to armour and improvement so... badly, to be honest.
AC, levels, HP... are all horrifically abstract to the point that far simpler systems are far more accurate and less abstract.

I play D&D because everyone knows it, it's a high fantasy game, and because it's in a category all of it's own. It's kind of poor in most respects, but... it's D&D. If I want a in-depth RPG, to do some investigative stuff (or indeed anything that's not centred squarely around dungeon bashing!), some grittiness, a decent combat simulation, or intrigue, then I'll play something else and vocally oppose any plan to use the system.

D&D is there for when I want D&D. I can handle the warts, so long as there's a door to kick down, a monster behind it, and a pile of +1 magic items.
It's practically a pastiche.

[Psyx]

Also: We never play past about 14th level, when the whole system turns into a creaking mess.

[randomhero00]

Also: We never play past about 14th level, when the whole system turns into a creaking mess.

I'd say between 10-12 is where it really messes up. You can really abuse metamagic or action economy by then. So what I like to do is essentially play E6 but give them powers that make them LA+5/CR+5 so they can still face big enemies.

[Grendus]

I think Rich summed it up best in his denouncement of D&D's diplomacy system and the 'supposed' balancing factor of the DM adding modifiers. I don't want a system where the DM decides everything that happens, if I did, we wouldn't be using dice at all. I want a system where things basically happen according to a verisimilitude of rules with the DM there to handle things that can't be done with dice rolls. In fact, if the game is being run right, a good DMPC should be able to coexist with the party without any problems. D&D has that mechanic fairly well established, albeit with some severe balancing issues (though if you just restrict the party to T3 or lower it's actually pretty balanced, you just need to get out of your little core bubble).

Rules lite is fine, just remember that it's not really D&D anymore. It's your own creation. Nothing wrong with that (heck, my group plays a completely homebrew PnP game), but don't dis those who prefer a more structured game.

[Doughnut Master]

Our only rules are,
"Is it broken?"
"Does it make sense?"

If the answers are no and yes respectively, we usually let it slide.

[The Big Dice]

I tend to ignore the rules until they are needed. Most of the time, tey just get in the way of having fun. I mean you, overly complicated subsystems like grappling.

What I do recommend is, everyone takes a look at the primer on old school gaming (http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/quick-primer-for-old-school-gaming/3159558). It's a good explanation of the real, practical differences between rules light and rules heavy systems.

[Grendus]

After reading the first few pages of that pamphlet, I have to say... it's really slanted. It feels more like he's comparing tabletop gaming to an MMO. Any of those situations can be handled by a competent DM in both rules lite and rules heavy systems (jumping onto the goblin, for example, can be treated as an aerial charge with a tumble check to land. Treat the goblin as flatfooted because he didn't expect an attack from above). The only difference is that he decided to portray the rules heavy DM as being rigid.

After reading the descriptions from both sides, I think that the people who favor rules-lite or rules-heavy gaming were just burned by the other side. They met a rules lawyer screw-you dm, so they favor rules lite where more diplomacy reigned. Alternatively, they played with a five year old I'll-make-up-the-rules-as-I-go dm and decided they always wanted what could happen to be decided in advance. Both styles are perfectly valid, but there's a fair amount of mudslinging and it's getting on my nerves.

[Enguhl]

My group usually plays a more "Rules known" than "rules light". Especially when we start new systems.
It works pretty well, if something is done and we know the rules, we use them. If we don't know the official rules, we usually just go with a 'common sense' thing and add a roll to it.
If we don't know the rules but we know where they are exactly / its too complicated or important to just make it up, then we will look it up. But at this point (especially for 3.5) we know more or less everything.

I think it doesn't really matter how many rules your game has, as long as they are streamlined enough for you and your group to know. It doesn't take away from the story or progression in my opinion, since its like looking at a gap and thinking "I could probably jump that". Rules just help you judge what you can and can't do in the game.

[Ernir]

My games aren't "rules light".

I bought the books, I'm going to use them. I like to think that every one of the numbers I have on my character sheet is relevant. The wargame portion of D&D is just as important to me as the RP portion.

I'm not saying I don't have houserules, or that I don't houserule everything away. But the attitude that rules aren't important to the game, or that them being subject to the DM's whims is a good thing... I don't agree with it.

[The Big Dice]

After reading the first few pages of that pamphlet, I have to say... it's really slanted. It feels more like he's comparing tabletop gaming to an MMO. Any of those situations can be handled by a competent DM in both rules lite and rules heavy systems (jumping onto the goblin, for example, can be treated as an aerial charge with a tumble check to land. Treat the goblin as flatfooted because he didn't expect an attack from above). The only difference is that he decided to portray the rules heavy DM as being rigid.
The point of that example is that it's replicating something seen in movies and TV all the time, but that isn't covered particularly well by formal rules. Which means that different GMs are going to handle the situation in different ways. There's the play by the rules guy and the wing it guy.

But the real point of the pamphlet is to explain the lost art of player skill. The rise of system mastery and complex systems that attempt to provide rules based solutions for every conceivable situation mean that play has become more and more abstract.

Why bother describing how you're going to search for the trap or hidden treasure when you can just roll some dice and have the GM tell you what's what?

Player skill still exists in the form of social playstyles. Games like L5R and other "storytelling" games encourage it for social interactions. But it's kind of a lost art for other aspects of play. But it's also something that I'd encourage people to experiment with.

Because if your character looks under the rug and finds the hidden trapdoor that hides that stash of loot, that's much more fun than failing a Search roll by 1.

[Warlawk]

After reading the descriptions from both sides, I think that the people who favor rules-lite or rules-heavy gaming were just burned by the other side. They met a rules lawyer screw-you dm, so they favor rules lite where more diplomacy reigned. Alternatively, they played with a five year old I'll-make-up-the-rules-as-I-go dm and decided they always wanted what could happen to be decided in advance. Both styles are perfectly valid, but there's a fair amount of mudslinging and it's getting on my nerves.

^
This.
Different strokes for different folks.

[Kuma]

I am almost excessively rules light when I DM. Of course I normally DM for inexperienced players, so most of my rule cuts are to expedite play.

[WarKitty]

The point of that example is that it's replicating something seen in movies and TV all the time, but that isn't covered particularly well by formal rules. Which means that different GMs are going to handle the situation in different ways. There's the play by the rules guy and the wing it guy.

But the real point of the pamphlet is to explain the lost art of player skill. The rise of system mastery and complex systems that attempt to provide rules based solutions for every conceivable situation mean that play has become more and more abstract.

Why bother describing how you're going to search for the trap or hidden treasure when you can just roll some dice and have the GM tell you what's what?

Player skill still exists in the form of social playstyles. Games like L5R and other "storytelling" games encourage it for social interactions. But it's kind of a lost art for other aspects of play. But it's also something that I'd encourage people to experiment with.

Because if your character looks under the rug and finds the hidden trapdoor that hides that stash of loot, that's much more fun than failing a Search roll by 1.

Played like this once, hated it. I was trying to play a charming, diplomatic character. I put my stats into charisma and wisdom to represent this, and described her backstory out. When it comes time to do something, I get told "No dice. Roleplay the encounter out." Now, I personally absolutely cannot get through a diplomatic encounter without putting my foot in my mouth and shoving. Which, needless to say, is what I do. And my diplomat ends up looking like a complete useless fool for the game, because I as the player don't know how to be diplomatic and charming very well.

[DeltaEmil]

Interacting socially with the socially important npc of the evening should be played out, and rolling only be used to guide or to "correct" the player's mistake, if both player and gm agree that the character might really have said this better. At best, it only sets the mood for the first-impression, after that, the player should play it out. The gm is of course expected to consider the player's inability to roleplay it out perfectly, and to be generous with the outcome.

Interacting socially with faceless goons and other time-wasting stuff is where one should simply roll.

And of course, the same holds true for the other way round. If the gm tries to simulate a sobbing waif begging the heroes to rescue her old grandfather, but the gm isn't that much of a really experienced super-hollywood-style-actor, they're expected to be lenient and to add their own imagination to that scene and to improve upon.

[Hallavast]

All the debate about "rules-heavy" vs. "rules-light" aside, I think the goal of rules light is to focus more on narrative and story rather than combat and character building.

That said, my recent game has altered 3.5 rules that have accomplished a focus on the former almost by accident.

Our group originally wanted a system that was low-magic, low-power creep, more grit. To do this, we made a number of changes:

1. We restricted the class selection to the 4 NPC classes: Adept, Expert, Aristocrat, and Warrior.

2. We restricted magic items to those that can be created by using the adept spell list but at double the price. Also, there are no run-of-the-mill wonderous items like boots of flying or rings of sustenance. There are such things, but they are extremely rare and generally can't be purchased with gold. There are still items like potions, wands, and scrolls, but again only ones from the adept spell list (and those are double market price or more).

3. We removed about 90% of all the monsters in the MM. The ones we removed were the absurd ones like gibbering mouthers or darkmantles. We also got rid of redundant monsters like ettins (in favor of giants), sahuagin (in favor of lizard folk), dragon subtypes, devils (kept most demons), celestials(kept angels), and so forth. Any monster not in the MM1 is right out.

4. We got rid of all demihumans. This means no elves, dwarves, halflings, or such like.

5. We changed the focus of our campaign to one that deals with court intrigues and political power struggles instead of wandering in forgotten tombs and killing monsters for their loot. Experience is awarded based on achievements rather than who or what the party has killed.

6. We've agreed that the game will end at around level 10, and that has been the defacto "level cap" for builds. I've indicated that other kinds of power are easier to achieve. Each player is either an elite agent or the offspring (or both) of a Lord of the realm. As such, they start the game wealthy and with social power rather than penniless and physical/magical power. Instead of spells, they have hirelings. Instead of magic armor, they have sworn bodyguards and squires.

From the first session, we've seen an abundance of scheming, deal-making, and political warfare. The players are much more invested in their character's lives than in previous games. They are reluctant to enter combat (because they believe they could be killed easily). They are interested in the story more than their individual character builds (probably because their builds are so boring).

The players spent the first session passing notes to each other and the DM (me) and making secret deals with NPCs at court rather than rolling to-hit rolls and saving throws. In fact most of the dice-rolling has been for bluff and diplomacy checks. As a result, the game took shape as a streamlined, tension-filled narrative that ended in a brief, meaningful, violent struggle at the end of the night. In other words, while our system is still fairly rules-heavy (still has grapple checks, vancian magic, and a ton of feats), the game we ended up with was rules-light.

[Earthwalker]

After reading the descriptions from both sides, I think that the people who favor rules-lite or rules-heavy gaming were just burned by the other side. They met a rules lawyer screw-you dm, so they favor rules lite where more diplomacy reigned. Alternatively, they played with a five year old I'll-make-up-the-rules-as-I-go dm and decided they always wanted what could happen to be decided in advance. Both styles are perfectly valid, but there's a fair amount of mudslinging and it's getting on my nerves.

I think this must be true. When thinking of playing styles my rules light works as I only play in groups that I know. I GM for friends and as such they know what to expect from me we have been playing years.
If I was GM for an entirly new group (something which I have never done) I would need to make sure that I followed the rules as they are mainly there to protect the players.

[Psyx]

I'd say between 10-12 is where it really messes up. You can really abuse metamagic or action economy by then. So what I like to do is essentially play E6 but give them powers that make them LA+5/CR+5 so they can still face big enemies.

I agree. We just never learn our lesson and tend to play a couple of levels more just to see our characters come to fruition and be reminded what a mess the rules are at high play levels. I've looked into E6 and did a touch of re-tooling on it (BAB to AC, armour as DR, 2d10 for skill checks, the SW wounds/vitality system and a couple of other things) for potentially running a game in Norrath, before deciding that the system was still poor and there were simply better systems for the job.

Rather than attempting to re-tool D&D to make it a decent system, and then teach everyone the house rules, I find it better to just use something else, straight out of the box, or with a minor tweak or two.

It's all about what I want from a game. If I want a very heroic, free flowing game, I'll use something faster like Feng Shui or Torg. If I want gritty I use WFRP or RoS or homebrew. Whether I want rules light or rules heavy depends completely on the campaign and players, and you always need to tailor that.

D&D is not the answer to every question. In fact, I find that D&D has a niche of its own and is only suitable for use when you want to specifically play D&D, kill some stuff and take its treasure.



That said, my recent game has altered 3.5 rules that have accomplished a focus on the former almost by accident.

See: In the wake of that many changes, I'd have just picked up a different book. It's like installing 4x4 and off-road tyres on a Honda Civic when you can just go out and buy a Land Rover.

[obliged_salmon]

My rules:

1) Only roll the dice when something important is on the line.
2) Set the stakes before any dice are rolled, to make sure everyone is on the edge of their seat, every time.
3) Make sure the characters are able to live up to the players' concepts of them (e.g. stealthy assassin should be able to sneak, and kill folk, etc.)

All the other rules are window dressing, regardless of system.
/opinion

[Typewriter]

The players use the rules to create characters, and I never tell them they can't do something that the rules say they can.

As DM, I build custom monsters all the time, HP does not always equate out to HD, create custom powers (some monsters are immune to all damage that isn't cold, "Oh noes, run away and research the beast!"), custom spells, etc. etc.

The other thing I do is make heavy use of situational modifiers with a lot of skill checks. The rules say that you know everything about this monster with a DC 25 knowledge check? Even though this is the first one to ever materialize in this plane? No. Oh, you're trying to diplomance a guy from hostile to friendly in one round when he just watched you slaughter his family and bathe in their blood? That's +250,000 to the DC.

The goals are to make things streamlined and to keep players from thinking they know everything. They shouldn't know the stats of every monster they encounter, nor should they know what every spell in the world is. If a player thinks I've done something wrong, and they think it's enough to look up then while they look it up we continue the game. If the player convinces me that I ruled something wrong, and that the rules way is better, then we use it that way from then on.

[Quietus]

Played like this once, hated it. I was trying to play a charming, diplomatic character. I put my stats into charisma and wisdom to represent this, and described her backstory out. When it comes time to do something, I get told "No dice. Roleplay the encounter out." Now, I personally absolutely cannot get through a diplomatic encounter without putting my foot in my mouth and shoving. Which, needless to say, is what I do. And my diplomat ends up looking like a complete useless fool for the game, because I as the player don't know how to be diplomatic and charming very well.

I try to avoid situations like this; I know as a player, this would piss me off.

I tend to be middle of the road. I don't hold strict RAW games, but I do use most of the book-given mechanics. The "rules light" stuff I have is all to eliminate annoying bookkeeping. Arrows? You're third level. As long as you run into archers you get to loot, or make it to a town that's got more than 50 people in it, assume you've restocked. I'll let you know if you need to keep track. Gold for a stay at an inn/entry to a town/a basic meal? If you're just going for the basics.. I really don't care. One or two gold here or there is ultimately meaningless to me. You want nice digs and a banquet, sure, I might charge you for that. But if all you want is a cot in a small room and some warm stew in your belly.. whatever.

I also tend to go by the rule of cool. You want to do X thing that isn't in the rules, or might even be explicitly not allowed by the rules but makes sense anyway? I'll probably give you a fair roll against it, if it's interesting. I do use the rules as a baseline, and if a player does something that really throws me off, my general rule is "If the rules let you do something I'll let it go, but I'll let you know after the game that it's not kosher and won't work again." It seems to fairly well, for me.. and I don't think it's ever come up, either. Probably because my system mastery tends to be well above that of the people I play with.

[Foryn Gilnith]

But the real point of the pamphlet is to explain the lost art of player skill.
It's a game. Skill is still important regardless. More important than class, more important than build.


Why bother describing how you're going to search for the trap or hidden treasure when you can just roll some dice and have the GM tell you what's what?
Because I am unfond of brute-forcing my way through problems like that (and that's almost invariably what I'd do, and what I read about in many "traditional" D&D excerpts).

[randomhero00]

I agree with roleplay and not rollplay as much as possible.

[The Big Dice]

Played like this once, hated it. I was trying to play a charming, diplomatic character. I put my stats into charisma and wisdom to represent this, and described her backstory out. When it comes time to do something, I get told "No dice. Roleplay the encounter out." Now, I personally absolutely cannot get through a diplomatic encounter without putting my foot in my mouth and shoving. Which, needless to say, is what I do. And my diplomat ends up looking like a complete useless fool for the game, because I as the player don't know how to be diplomatic and charming very well.

That was the GM being a jerk.

The whole point of games with social rules is that they allow a player who might not have the gift of the gab to play on an even footing with one that does.

There's an excellent section on this in the Legend of the Five Rings GM Survival Guide. If you can track a copy down, I highly recommend it. The same scene gets played out twice, once with the GM ignoring rules in favour oif roleplay, the second with the GM using rollplay and roleplay in tandem to allow the two stylers of player a chance to shine.

[Sang Real]

I'm slowly working up to running my first 2e game for just this reason.
Hope you have fun.

My problem with rules-light editions of D&D is that they also have a ton of pointlessly byzantine rules (percentile strength) and asinine restrictions (paladins must be LG, druids must be N, ect).

[WarKitty]

That was the GM being a jerk.

The whole point of games with social rules is that they allow a player who might not have the gift of the gab to play on an even footing with one that does.

There's an excellent section on this in the Legend of the Five Rings GM Survival Guide. If you can track a copy down, I highly recommend it. The same scene gets played out twice, once with the GM ignoring rules in favour oif roleplay, the second with the GM using rollplay and roleplay in tandem to allow the two stylers of player a chance to shine.

To be fair it was a first-time DM. Keen on the idea of roleplay and himself has the gift of the gab. We talked after the game, and he said if he did it again he'd take a less roleplay-only oriented approach.

[The Big Dice]

Hope you have fun.

My problem with rules-light editions of D&D is that they also have a ton of pointlessly byzantine rules (percentile strength) and asinine restrictions (paladins must be LG, druids must be N, ect).

As opposed to the byzantine and asinine rules and restrictions of WotC editions of D&D? Like grappling, prestige classes and Druids in general.

[Sang Real]

As opposed to the byzantine and asinine rules and restrictions of WotC editions of D&D? Like grappling, prestige classes and Druids in general.
Exactly like those, yes. :smallsmile: