Recent content by Maggan

That's a core belief at Free League, at least for their Year Zero games. "Only roll dice when something important is is at stake and where failure has a meaningful consequence."

Well, there we'll have to agree to disagree. :)

Yeah, and all the rules light systems I've played adress that. Well, except my own Miami Vice rip off game where the players say if they have a personal characteristic that stands out, lists three things they're good at and get a gun and then when they do things they roll a d6 for resolution...

Doesn't everything land in that vicinity? The GM sets the difficulty, handles the consequenses of the roll, sets the circumstances. I am not blind to the problem of playing a game of "guess what the GM accepts", but to me it's a GM problem and not a rules problem.

I love love love the advice Monte Cook gave when 3e was released. Paraphrased: If you attempt something, start by rolling the dice. If the result is ambigous, look up the rule. If you need a modifier and don't know it right away, use +2 or -2. This will keep the game going without sacrificing...

We hash it out while playing. Player: I want to grab the chandelier and swing over the henchmen to land right in front of the villain! GM: Wow, yeah ... that's cool. Hmmmm, sure I'll allow it but you have to succeed a check agains Acrobativs with disadvantage, otherwise you fall in the middle...

There's a lot of headroom before they reach 3000 pages. :)

Sidenote, Free League are working on a book on magic for Dragobane. :) Nothing is known about it yet, but they've mentioned it in conversations at cons.

Thanks for that link, that went straight into the category of "things to bookmark because it was an awesome read".

Funny that, that is how I read the OP. A personal reflection on how the user feels about the amount of rules in a game. And some questions thrown in about what other people like.

Or the opposite. Not having every action codified might free up the imagination and let players act freely. When we played a lot of D&D4, we ran into that exact situation where players would be sitting there staring at the character sheet trying to find the action that achieved a result...

I think it is more likely that people have different experiences and that your style of gaming is not the only style of gaming. Is it so anethema to think that some people have played with a light focus on the rules they use ever since this hobby started? No one is saying you can't enjoy 3000...

Wow, cool for those who like that! IMO that's totally unnecessary but I have no problem with people wanting more rules for their table. :)

That's not the case. Without rules there is no game, IMO. But I don't see any way to meaningfully model the difference between .303, a .308, a 30/30, and a 30.06 in the framework of Call of Cthulhu. That does not mean, nor does it imply, that rules aren't for me. I am a role-playing gamer...

Well, our play styles are widely different. I'd just look at what's in the rules and approximate the stats from there. The granularity of Call of Cthulhu isn't IMO really suited to having enough meaningful differences between weapons that they warrant 200 pages of rules. A pistol is a pistol and...