What exactly qualifies a system as rules-lite or rules-heavy?
>>44595634
How many rules there are.
>>44595634
FATE and GURPS
>>44595634
Whatever I don't like.
>>44595634
Can all the rules and mechanics or quick references fit on one or two pages of paper?
If yes its rules-lite.
>>44596242
>Rules Lite
>2 Pages.
That's pretty limited.
A regular RPG is around 200 pages for the core rules, and typically has supplements on top of that.
A rules lite RPG I'd call anything where the entire ruleset is under 100 pages.
>>44596346
Note I said quick references
>>44596377
Ah. didn't read carefully enough. Thought that was an "AND".
>>44595634
There are no exact qualifications. Does a game seem to have relatively few rules and mechanics? If so it is rules light.
>>44595670
FATE isn't even that rules light. More of a rules-medium thing going on.
>>44595634
>bullshit...let me read that.
rules light
>bullshit...let me read that...again
rules heavy
Rules Heavy: The devs try to plan for every contingency in terms of rules; specific approaches to specific things.
Rules Medium: As above, but instead of specifics, it's broad approaches that can be used for a multitude of situations and scenarios.
Rules Light: The devs didn't feel like doing any actual work and nearly everything boils down to the same (or incredibly similar) roll and having the GM do the actual legwork/handwave the rest.
>>44595634
Oh, hello, Nightmare Bubbles, I thought I'd seen the last of you when Shadowrun Storytime ended.
>>44595634
rules lite is free form jazz, rules heavy is orchestra symphony.
>>44595634
>that nightmare Bubbles face
You know I'm aching for more of TwoDee's shadowrun storytime, right? Why must you remind me and drown me in nostalgia so?
>>44595634
At what point exactly does a hill become a mountain?
>>44595634
Get a hard-back copy of each game book.
Get a scale.
The rest is self explanatory.
>>44596242
Doesn't that include some versions of GURPS?
>>44596444
This.
>>44598202
Sorites pls go.
>>44595634
There is no meaningful distinction. They're just buzzwords /tg/ throws around because the vocabulary surrounding p&p culture is horrifically underdeveloped.
Don't let anyone tell you differently. Trying to discuss literally any intricate aspect of p&p games with /tg/ is an exercise in unspecifics and frustration.
A game where you could describe all the major aspects of play pretty completely in a page or two is rules light.
Most of the text on rpgs are specific stats, edge cases, ability lists, that sort of thing.
>>44595634
subjective opinions
>>44598202
600 meters. No, seriously. Mountaineers and a ton of governmental agencies (following the UK) have agreed to that incredibly arbitrary figure. Well, except for the Scottish, who call mountains hills as well.
>Time Wizards: The Sober and Serious Edition
or
>Time Wizards!
>>44595634
This is just one of these things that nobody can agree on, it just depends on whatever people are used to.
As an example, I'm a Swede, so I've played stuff like EON and Drakar och Demoner Trudvang or Fantasy!
EON is what I consider very rules-heavy, it's one of those games where you can look up ANYTHING and there's a rule for it, if you're not sure how to improvise it. It also has tables for days, making characters is like it's own little game, if you want to you can roll it all up and be like "So I guess I'm a Dwarf who adopted a human orphan and have a phobia for dogs". It clocks in at something like 290 pages, but there are a lot of supplementary books, the 290 pages contain all you need to get started though, rules, monsters, gear, all that jazz.
Drakar och Demoner Trudvang is like 160 pages including character creation, rules, gear, monsters, weapons and advice on running a campaign, but people don't really think of it as a rules light.
FANTASY! clocks in at 98 pages including rules for everything, monsters and whole starter adventure with a dungeon map, and that might be approaching what I'd look at as rules-light.
If you're used to american D&D though, I guess you call anything too small to beat someone to death with a rules-light system.
>>44596444
Bullshit, they just make it seem denser with their mountains of puffery.
>>44596444
Maybe its where rules are based on abstractions rather than pages upon pages of numerical tables and formulas.
>>44595634
>>44595670
>>44596444
>>44608095
Rules lite and Heavy isn't the same thi g as 'indie narrtive bullshit' and 'tech porn'.
FATE core rule is definitely rule heavy, the rules base on story telling tropes rather then table and charts, while a game like GURPS ultra lite is a single page long.
>>44611059
>fate is rules lite!
>fate is rules heavy!
I ...guess I can see where you're coming from?
you can play FATE wrong to make it rules lite and it holds up pretty nicely, just take your skill pyramid, aspects to help char gen and stunts/extras for cool stuff you want and mostly ignore the rest.
'raw' (since it's made to be hacked apart) it's all about trying to stack +2s onto your action until you can't lose
>>44611824
Oh wait shit my group has been playing FATE wrong by default.
>>44611059
>GURPS is rules lite
>FATE is rules heavy
So pretty much >>44601771 was right and these are all just meme words.
>>44596507
I prefer to see Rules Light as "you're a human being with intelligence and imagination, and if you're any good at running a game, things are going to be quicker, easier and probably better if we just give you a framework and let you run with the ball instead of trying to turn the system into an overly-complicated wargame with shit you have to look up and/or which gets in your way when you already have the a good sense of what to do on your own".
Having more crunch can certainly allow you to add more depth to your game, but this comes at a price. All other things being equal, heavy rules are a failing. You want rules as simple as possible while still achieving what you want. So when I see a rules-medium game, I'm thinking "is the added material good enough to justify the sin of the game not being really simple and straightforward?" If I see a rules-heavy game, I'm thinking "are there any good ideas I can borrow from this game, because I'm definitely not running this overly complicated clusterfuck?"
I see the difference as being how much space is left to make shit up. Let's take editions of DnD as an example.
In B/X, you can basically tack on whichever systems you want and you'll be fine. Conversely, there's a whole bunch that's just not given proper rules and left to the GM to come up with something of their own.
Rules-heavy is something like 3rd ed. Everything is covered by the rules in a lot of detail, which is good because you'll never have to make something up on the fly, but bad because everything interlinks and altering one part of the game can have massive ramifications to other parts,collapsing the whole thing like a house of cards.
>>44596495
>BestOfTG.png
>>44597713
Soon, Storymeats, soon.
>>44616672
3e DnD is almost bizarre in what they tried to do outside of the basic character mechanics. It's like they went too far and couldn't go back.
A chicken can't hurt you in DnD3, but there's stats for a chicken so that you know what stats it WILL have if someone enlarges one or makes a giant one or something.
There's no reason to go around digging tunnels or smashing chairs, but when you do, suddenly, there's rules for it down to exactly how much damage you do.
