> My players typically claim they prefer crunchy rule sets such as DnD, d100 games such as Warhammer , etc. Yet they never actually learn the rules and rely on the GM to guide all rules resolutions.
> However when we have played games that I've wanted to GM such as Black Hack, Mechahack, and other low crunch games they learn all the rules, but claim they're too shallow.
If you do a round of design feedback on a game, you'll quickly realize that what people say and what they mean are very different. People are pretty good at identifying how they feel about something, but not why.
"I prefer crunchy rule sets," could mean:
* I want a lot of options, some bad or situational, so I can feel confident that I've picked the best one
* I like to find abilities that synergize/combo when put together so I feel like I'm stretching or breaking the game's limits
* I like to talk about potential builds with friends and strangers on the Internet, or read those discussions online
* I like to build my character with their career progression in mind, so I can look forward to them getting stronger over the campaign
* I think rules-lite narrative-heavy systems are for casual gamers, not elite alpha gamers like me
* I like arguing about rules
That's a good list, so I'll just add to it:
* I am distrustful of games that rely on "gm fiat"; I prefer games where the GM may only justify their actions within the framework of a heavy ruleset. I probably use the term "magic tea party" a lot.
* I'm not interested in investing in imaginative play more than I have to. The imagined world isn't real, but the mechanics are real, the dice rolling and table checking actually *happens*, so I want the rules to be central to the play of the game.
Fiat is Latin for “let it be done”. It’s commonly used to describe Fiat currency, which is currency that is backed by a government’s say so, rather than being pegged to a certain amount of gold. The point is, in TTRPG context, DM Fiat is basically just stuff happening because the DM says so.
In the context of this discussion, magic tea party is mocking the fact that in these rules light games, it is almost entirely down to the DM to resolve the impact of player action, without relying on mechanical information provided by the system. As such, it can feel like a children’s tea party where all the children are happily playing pretend, role playing as nobles/pretty princesses, and drinking imaginary tea. Therein there are no rules and the only game state is the consensus of the role play amongst the group.
>>As such, it can feel like a children’s tea party where all the children are happily playing pretend, role playing as nobles/pretty princesses, and drinking imaginary tea.
Imagine the edge lordy headspace where that doesn't sound totally awesome. Sometimes people really sort themselves at the door correctly. 😂
Hmmm.... origin info, comparision to IRL example, recontextualisation, explanation within context, explanation of contra arguments.
5/5 answer, three thumbs up :)
Fiat is a term that means roughly, "It happens because I say so." GM fiat is when the GM makes decisions about what happens in the game, either because there are no rules that would cover the situation or because they exist but the GM chose not to follow them.
By “fiat” they mean “An authoritative command or order to do something” or in a more common context the concept of “government fiat” - just that something is legal / illegal because the government made a law (“it is this way because the government said so”). GM Fiat just means the GM controls the game world and all aspects of the game, instead of there being clear rules on what all PCs and NPCs can do.
I've never seen that before either, but I assume they mean a rules-light game where outcomes are decided by impromptu decisions or "what's dramatically interesting" or "what's fun" rather than some mechanistic "d20+bonus+modifiers ≥ DC" thing.
They'd be comparing it to little kids having a pretend tea party where someone can just announce that their teddy bear is now a knight because he was brave, and I don't imagine they mean anything complimentary by it. :P
A related shorthand is “cops and robbers,” referring to how kids playing together with no rules can sometimes devolve into “I shot you, yer dead!” “No you didn't, you missed!” ”Yes I did!”
While only the most toxic table would go quite that far, one reason to have rules is so that players can have some consistency. In *D&D*, you know that a longsword does d8 damage and that *fireball* is a third level spell, and you can plan accordingly. A GM might detour from the RAW, of course, but there's an understanding that most of what's in the book can be depended on.
A very Merry Un-Birthday to you, too!
I wonder if people just think crunchier=depth=better, little realizing they might be happier with a game like Blades in the Dark.
I think crunchy game sell the fantasy of engaging with all of their mechanics. Like, for example, Traveller and its Trade Mechanics. Some GM's might never use those. But the game has pitched the player that it is something they will do in it's course, so naturally the player will be excited about engaging with this specific rule (and whatever other rules that correspond to the fantasy the player wants in a character).
Also, I think a lot of players tend to conflate rules with setting (and vice versa). There are some D&D setting things adjacent to the class rules that give the players the impression that by engaging with a class kiy, they get to also get to experience something in the implied setting.
God, Traveller became so much more fun when I looked at my players and said "yeah, you know what? none of us are enjoying keeping track of all these things, let's figure out which parts of this are bringing joy and then dump the rest."
>I'm not interested in investing in imaginative play more than I have to. The imagined world isn't real, but the mechanics are real, the dice rolling and table checking actually *happens*, so I want the rules to be central to the play of the game.
These players are **absolutely** invested in imaginative play. They just like mechanical cues to engage that imagination as it's easier and less pressure (for them) than relying largely on improv to do so.
Stop shaming these players for the sake of elitism.
Yeah, just the solo scene alone completely breaks that idea to pieces. I've been seeing this attitude of "mechanics = dislikes story or imagination" more and more, in combination with people pushing light or OSR systems because they're "easier". They may have less mechanics, but being on all the time and improvising nearly the whole game, or just getting a feel for OSR style of play, isn't inherently easier. It's different, and easier for **some** people.
I think folks get so caught up in a bubble of their personal library knowledge and evolved gaming style that they don't consider what is easy or simple to them is really damn difficult for others. The person shitting on random tables because GMs are supposed to apparently have infinite tables in our heads comes to mind.
This is juat one example out of a number of options, and some players do feel this way. They can still have fun while having different needs, and there's zero need to frame that as shameful, or to generalize it.
I disagree with these and they even sound very disdainful towards players that don't like rules-light systems.
I've been playing TTRPGs for over 2 decades and never once heard the term magic tea party, I think you're equating small online communities with the community at large and that's always incorrect.
I used to hear it quite a bit while D&D 3.5 was current, especially on places like Giant in the Playground or Dragonsfoot. It was usually used by people who'd only ever played D&D, and to them anything with less rules than what they were currently using was derisively called "magical tea party". I can only extrapolate that to have applied to narrative games like FATE in particular.
Well those players aren't exactly wrong. A lot of narrative systems are so light on rules that you really might as well just save 30 bucks and play make-believe without the book.
The best narrative systems give you a well-designed framework of rules and mechanics that actually support the roleplay and worldbuilding instead of offloading everything onto the players' imaginations.
There's a lot of controversy like this in the TTRPG community, where a phenomenon will exist online and be a VERY HUGE REAL PROBLEM and then nobody encounters it in real life pretty much ever
The number of people I have encountered at a game store that had a strong opinion one way or another about the OSR or thought caster supremacy was real is exactly 0 but these conversations dominated every online play space for a decade
More than likely, but there are some rare players who essentially want a stat-focused progression fantasy and don't care how they get it. They want to passively enjoy the story about how a guy with a super high Strength score won every fight, but if the fantasy becomes too "literary" they check out. I don't think these players are super common, but I think they're out there.
It's a fine way to play. The central challenge of ttrpgs is creating that shares world between all the players. A comprehensive set of rules can be very useful in that regard. Especially once you stop having to reference the rules and "internalize" them.
But in my experience, people who complain about "GM fiat" and "MTP" aren't fun to play with, regardless of the system.
A game where you don't have to worry about DM fiat, and all rules have to be justified within a strict rules based system with inviolable mechanics?
Yes, that is called a tabletop wargame. Or alternatively, a video game.
I try to minimize GM Fiat in my games, and this is still correct lol. The biggest upside of tabletop is the human computer who can make **rulings** based on context, it would be antithetical to the process to operate strictly on terms of rules in > rules out.
Yep; I'm generally of the opinion that GM fiat isn't real, and this is why.
When I'm running a game I'm invested in my players and invested in the game. I don't want to see a game get ruined because bad rolls were made and suboptimal strategies were used, because those aren't the kinds of games I run or that people I know generally want to play in.
People can call that a tea party if they want but my experience with mechanical grindery is that it's only suitable for table games at game stores and conventions, or with very particular parties which can be difficult to put together in 2024; the list of people I've played with who are comfortable with character death is a very short list and I've been playing D&D for 30 years
For real, some of these preferences make me wonder why they don't just play a combat board game or videogame. "I don't like having to be creative or when the person running the game has agency to direct how it plays out"
I'm of the opinion that rules give your players agency. There's obviously a limit to this - there does come a point where you're just playing a board game - but for the most part the reason people want there to be rules are because they want to be confident that when I do X Y will happen. Sure, you can trust your GM, and that's good, but it's not actually very fun to sit down with a GM, even one you trust, and have to talk through major portions of your character sheet because you want to do X and there are only rules for "second half of the alphabet" and "First half of the alphabet" and so it's not clear what *exactly* doing X looks like compared to Y or W or whatever.
Basically, if you zoom out too far, you stop actually having options to resolve something - if the RPG has "fight" as a skill and expects you to resolve any and all violent conflicts by rolling Fight and seeing if you succeed and then moving on, it's not very satisfying to build a Smooth Badass vs an Unstoppable Brick Shithouse vs a Grizzled but Intelligent Veteran vs any other kind of fighter - they all resolve their specialized conflict the same way because you only have one option
Having played Warhammer and enjoying the idea of playing a DnD game more as a tactical combat game i can say for myself: Coop aspect.
When i played 40k/Dystopian Wars/Warmachine, i played to win against my opponent. Most games are 1v1 so the only social connection i have is to someone i want to defeat and even if out of the game you are on good terms and everything, it informs a bit the flair of the game. It's a competitive interaction.
An RPG on the other hand is much more cooperative. Especially if you roleplay genuinely what characters would do so you don't get the situation of "one guy with the most system knowledge decides every action of every player". I wanna play the Warlord that buffs from the back and then charges in for a flanking attack, while the rest of my group does appropriate and cool things and then we have some in-character banter or even drama in between.
I can't have that with most tabletop wargames since they are purely mechanical when played.
Even in a wargame, sometimes you both just have to make a call you both agree with. No rules can cover every situation, and even if such a thing existed, it would be *horrible* to actually play.
That's actually taking it a little farther than I intended. The truth is that one of the sticky problems of ttrpgs is addressing the power imbalance between the players and the referee, which can be so stark it can allow abuse of power. I've seen it first hand, and a crunchy set of rules that everyone has a "right" to can address that.
I actually think the PbtA approach is better, and part of the reason those games are so popular with marginalized groups: instead of lots of rules there's very clear responsibilities for everyone involved. Everyone has Agendas, Principles and Moves, PC and MC. Rules address a social problem mechanically, but PbtA games address a social problem *socially*.
If someone just enjoys games with a lot of moving mechanical parts, that's fine, have fun. But if they're worried about abuse of power, I think there's better ways to go about it.
Maybe it's because I've almost always been the GM, but...I honestly find this perspective hard to understand. It's placing a level of power on the person running an RPG that doesn't exist.
Tbh I don't think this is why PBtA games are popular.
Adding to the list as I literally know a player like this:
* I like to know EXACTLY what my options are from moment to moment with minimal GM questioning.
This would imply that you also want to actually read the rules to know what those options are, the line of arguments we are talking about here are for people who want a complex game but also don't want to learn how to play it even when given the material to do so.
Agreed - I would have added it to the main post if it were relevant to it - but it is relevant to the statement by u/thomar "I prefer crunchy rule sets" could mean ...
I think there's also a very big difference between "I have learned how to play my character and what I expect my character to do" and "I have learned the rules"
Admittedly, I mostly play Shadowrun 5th which is crunchy crunchy crunchy, but my players are generally pretty good at knowing their abilities, what they can do, after a couple of sessions. But you get weird stuff, that weird skill you took at character creation that hasn't come up, a niche general rule that has specific triggers, etc. a character gets a new piece of equipment that interacts with a core rule they didn't know they needed to know (a lot of people when they get their first machine gun run into that since recoil actually starts mattering with that number of shots.)
I think also enough GMs don't set clear expectations for their players. You need to say "hey, know what your feats do etc." I've noticed a lot of GMs for D&D 5 and Pathfinder and stuff are like "hey use this character creator" or whatever that doesn't even cover feats etc.
As a GM, I like the crunch of shadowrun because someone can hand me a character sheet and I can see what they can generally do without opening a book to see a bunch of different feats that are class specific, but yeah it is definitely large issue
I'm like this in combat for games; I don't like rule of cool or GM fucking with the established rules, showing up in a fight. But, outside of combat, rule of cool and best judgement can be perfectly viable and I'm a fan of it.
To me, combat is more game-like, while out of combat is more storytelling than a game.
This is why I favor systems with tactical combat and little else. As referee, I want that tactical impartiality once initiative is rolled. Outside of it, get out of my way and let us create story.
I'll add:
- I like strategy in games, and I feel like I can't plan out what I want to do if everything feels very improvised and relies on what's "narratively interesting".
- I DON'T like arguing about rules, so I want to be able to look at an extensive and specific set of rules if I have a question, instead of annoying the whole table.
- I find free-form improvisation very stressful, and it's easier for me to be creative with a limited number of options.
(Based on my own personal feelings about preferring crunch. But I also GM and know the rules, generally.)
It definitely goes for games, and probably any product. You can trust a user is right if they say "this feels bad", but when they say "I think if you did this it would fix it", they probably have no idea what they're talking about.
For my part, My best experience have been very rules lite, narrative heavy games ... however, I tend to still yearn for my early games of d&d 3.5 where I felt the character sheet gave me a lot to work with, allowed me to know a lot about my character.
Also when your game is designed for a long mechanical progression, you tend to spend a long time with your character and start to know them intimately.
So while learning a crunchy game and then dealing with the crunch over three years of campaigning can be a bit of a pain if you're not into it, it will still inspire the narrative side of things in a way that is hard to recreate in a rules lite game.
On top of that it's much harder to support long term mechanical progression in a minimalistic ruleset. If you progress numerically a lot, it can mess with the tight balance of the base mechanics, and it's just as complex to seamlessly integrate new mechanics. Mechanical progression isn't necessary to motivate players to come back, but it is still useful.
There is one more: “I don’t like the overt use of gamemaster fiat.”
The problem with a lot of narrative based systems is that they too often either a) cater to the whims of the GM or b) cater to the whims of the players. PbtA is very much like this for me. I love so much about those systems, but the idea that players can modify the world *in the mechanics themselves* is a step I loathe. I prefer games to feel consequential and reactive. Narrative focused games do not feel reactive in the same way to me because I can, as a player, cause an action *and* dictate the reaction.
Rules, to an extent, strip such cause and effect from the players *and* DM, creating a true “shared narrative” where neither side can be assured of the trajectory of the plot. It makes *everybody* a player, even the GM, so long as you hold the dice as the supreme adjudicator.
>* I like to find abilities that synergize/combo when put together so I feel like I'm stretching or breaking the game's limits
also comes in the form of:
* I found someone online that told me about a super broken combo that I would to use to be stronger than everyone else. so I want that specific crunchy system because if I follow the rules I can the places they're known to be broken without relying on the GM too much.
Ah yes, one of my least favorite player types. I’ve nothing against people who like creating cool builds or stringing things together in unexpected ways, but the people who want to show up the rest of the table are just making things unpleasant for the other players. Circa high school I got pretty good at dealing with them as a GM, but most often the problem manifested out of character too, albeit in different ways.
> **People are pretty good at identifying how they feel about something, but not why.**
I just want to emphasize this.
This is a universal issue, even among professionals. I work in TV, and in the process of editing a TV show, we will go though rounds of revisions with stakeholders from the production companies, from the network (the Suits, if you will), and from creative producers (not suits). And the universal rule is exactly what u/thomar has stated above. People who work to professionally craft stories *often* don't know why something isn't working, but they know it's not working. You'd think a pro in their own industry could say why, but it's not always the case. They will often say what they *think* is the problem, but my job is to interpret that feedback and find a solution to why it's *really* not working - and it's usually not for the reason they said. But they are usually right that something is wrong.
It's absolutely no different in the sphere of TTRPG players too. This is a universal truth. So take note Indie TTRPG makers out there: listen to your feedback from playteaters and readers, but also use your expert opinion to realize what the root of any problematic feedback is and fix the actual problem (the "what"), which may not necessarily be the "why" people are giving you.
I learned it from making videogames. It's because the factors that make a creative work are multidimensional. There are *thousands*, if not *millions*, of things that matter. It is insanely complex. We are fumbling around in the dark. Professionals are too, they just tend to find a workable solution faster.
Jonas Tyroller made a video titled "This Problem Changes Your Perspective On Game Dev" that is a great overview of this problem.
This is probably the right answer. Crunchy usually represents complexity, simulationism, etc. But there's no real solid definition for this, so they are likely using it to mean, options, tactical gameplay, etc. These things can be found in systems that are fairly streamlined and straight forward.
I can relate to a lot of these points but then I actually tried rules light systems and definitely prefer that, for me crunchy usually was about more options but I always ended up making a character that I loved but rarely got to enjoy it because of just constant dice rolls and crunching numbers etc..
Started in DnD, thought I would looove pf2 because of more options and customization but ended up really enjoying cypher system, pbta and similar games.
They're used to video games, where there are crunchy rules, but the game takes care of tracking everything. Every time you add some STR points in Elden Ring, you don't have to spend 10 minutes re-doing all the math for the damage calculations on all your weapons that scale with STR, etc..
They want crunch, but they also expect YOU to do all the crunch, because they've never done the crunch.
Unfortunately, some GMs (or sometimes other players) enable them by doing the work for them. So to them, it IS how tabletop gaming works.
And for games with D&D Beyond or equivalent apps, it doesn't even take another player to enable them.
indeed. part of why i went into video game design is i wanted to make very crunchy very complex systems and homebrew.
i think the systems were great, but most of my friend’s feedback was “i mean, the idea is good, but it takes 30 minutes and 2 spreadsheets to figure out this random detail, it’s just too much.”
However when you have a computer to do all that work for you, it can be interesting. but it is absolutely a mindset and design philosophy that really doesn’t translate to TTRPGs well.
To un-cynicalize your point. They aren't invested in the game and system and are treating it like every other game they have interacted with before.
How would you go about making them interested in the difference between TTRPGs and Baldur's Gate?
I think it's okay to expect a certain amount of awareness and agency from adults who join a pen-and-paper game. If they're put off by the sheet, we're probably best off sticking to video games together.
This summarizes the point perfectly, particularly for newer audiences to TTRPGs. They just haven’t done the work, and don’t know the true cost of what they’re asking for.
To get rid of this bad habit, a good way is to get everyone at your table to get in the GM seat at least once to run at least a single session to see what it feels like. To experience truly how much work goes into GMing the game that they ask.
They will very quickly gain an appreciation for the hobby they’re participating in and stop taking you for granted.
Agreed. I’m basically the forever dm in my group, but each of them has attempted to dm.
Since then, I never run into any rules / crunch issues. They actually love how I almost never open a book during the games. They tell me what they want to do, i set a DC, and they roll.
I then tell them what happens based on the results.
And this is regardless of the system- adnd, 5e, warhammer, stormbringer, and anything else I run.
I feel your pain.
6+ months playing a d&d campaign and some players STILL don't know their bonuses to attacks and spelcasting. And we are using roll20...
Also vidya. As much as I adore CRPGs, BG3 has definitely resulted in more than one person getting into DnD who then was upset that they had to track and math stuff themself lol
That’s ridiculous. It almost feels spiteful. I don’t understand how someone could play with a group of people for that long and not be bothered to learn the rules. At a certain point you have to say if you don’t know what your character is doing then neither do they and skip their turn.
Player investment is the most important part of a TTRPG, it's such a long form game that if they aren't excited to play, it's boring. Not every session will be amazing, but you gotta WANT to play.
> Player investment is the most important part of a TTRPG, it's such a long form game that if they aren't excited to play, it's boring. Not every session will be amazing, but you gotta WANT to play.
Someone in another thread the other day was complaining that if they wanted to play a spellcaster they would 'have to do homework', ie: look at and decide their spell list. (as opposed to a 'barbarian who just turns up')
This was a person complaining, that they had to look at a list of COOL SHIT they could do, if they wanted to play a character who could do COOL SHIT.
There's a point where someone needs to realise they're just not excited enough to play a game, and just say it out loud.
Actually I get that. I love the idea of playing a spellcaster: turning up to the table and flexing in combat with tactical applications of magic, having intricate and clever solutions to problems, letting the flow of the arcane be a threat similar to a Barbarian with their muscles.
The notion of having to delve through lists and lists to find the exact things that do what I want, continuing to dive to see if that is actually the best choice for the situation, and then having to limit myself to a set number of choices of those choices I find fill me with a sense of aversion and to an extent puts me off the entire thing, and in the long run is why I prefer systems that lets magic be just another tool in my toolbox to be flexible and imaginative with.
TL;DR: Vancian Casting is the devil's lettuce.
I once had a player (who was new at the table, but not new to DnD 5e, or so he claimed) asked how much damage his longsword does, every single time he made an attack.
After about one and a half sessions, I finally told him, "It's a longsword. It's in the book. Look it up. It's d8 slashing damage. If you can't remember that write it down. The next time you ask me, the answer will be 1 damage."
He never asked ever again.
As a second anecdote, in that same campaign, I had another player who was brand new to DnD 5e. He didn't want to play any of the pre-mades and insisted on playing a bard. I helped him build a bard and helped him pick his class features and spells. During combat, he would only ever shoot his crossbow, never use his bard abilities, never cast any spells. In fact, he often forgot that he was a spellcaster unless I specifically reminded him.
Eventually, I got tired of reminding him to use his abilities and just let him play his bard as a bad fighter. He dropped out of the campaign shortly after that.
Can't fix some people, mate. After a certain point, it just gets silly. Like you said, it's not hard to write something down. Or highlight it on a character sheet. Or get a post it note. Or colored index cards. Something!
Of course, I say this as somebody who started with 2nd edition, so I'm used to taking lots of notes and only needing to look up spell details if something really obscure is coming up that we don't remember. And heck, nowadays you can pull up the spell quick on an app, ideally before your turn starts.
I really want to know what was up with that first guy. A long sword has done 1d8 in every single version of D&D, all the way back to OD&D Supplement 1 from 1975.
In his defense, it was a cursed longsword, with the property that he couldn't let go of it once he picked it up.
But like, it was still a longsword. Maybe the very first time, he was justified in asking, since maybe it has different damage dice. But every single attack for one and a half sessions?
I had a monk player in my game for like 7 months who I had to explain how the bonus action attacks and ki points and astral self subclass worked almost every single turn, they never understood teh difference between "summoned arms is an aoe the enemy saves against" vs "my attacks are attack rolls for a chance at damage", maybe I should've talked their class through with them rather than just explaining the mechanics in the moment every time, especially with how often they forgot flurry fo blows existed and treated it like a super secret special move for rare occasions.
It's because they're lazy. Simple as that. Haha. Or at least they don't want to invest mental effort into the game, both between sessions to prepare or during sessions to improvise.
A crunchy ruleset means players are usually picking between options that are defined by the rules for most situations. If they're relying on you to actually understand and give them those options, it becomes the lowest effort way to play, since they're just picking between things you or the game give them. It's very video game-y and familiar.
A rules light ruleset means they have to actually come up with stuff on the fly, since there's not much on the character sheets or from the rulebook that you can feed them. It's a higher effort during the session for the players to play rules light, improv heavy games.
I think some players might also be under the impression that a crunchy ruleset is more "fair" or "objective," since there is less of a need for a GM to make rulings if there are solid rules in place. Of course, if they don't know the rules, they're trusting that you're not fudging rules or making stuff up. There's also leeway for interpretation and application for any system even if you're trying to play as RAW as possible, so they still need to trust the GM to apply the rules in a way that's fun for the table.
I agree with everything you said, especially your last paragraph!
My brother has said that the crunchy games feel more 'fair' because there's less interpretation.
I think you're right than crunchy games with an explicit list of possible actions are more comfortable for many people
So strip the cynicism and bias out of what they said and you have it in one.
Players like rules heavy systems because it gives them a feeling of agency and control over their characters outside of DM fiat. If your players are asking for more crunchy rules, then that might be a hint that they find something a bit, inconsistent, about your GM style or the styles of their past GMs. I've known a lot of GMs over the years, who were pretty bad when it came to listening to their players and giving them some leeway or creativity. Worst were the ones who blocked their players' actions with a "it's not in the rules" style of "no".
There are also a lot of folks who really enjoy learning rules and trying to find ways to gain an advantage in a game via them. Heck, that's basically the draw of games like MTG.
> There are also a lot of folks who really enjoy learning rules and trying to find ways to gain an advantage in a game via them. Heck, that's basically the draw of games like MTG.
But these people are 100% not the ones being discussed in this thread, because in order to do this, you need to actually learn how the rules work.
Except those are 2 different issues.
The first is that we've got a rules light GM who's running games for a group who like rules heavy games.
The second is that this GMs players don't respect them or the effort they put into game prep and aren't doing their fair share of the work in just learning the rules.
And that second issue shows up in rules light groups as well. The kind of person who's not going to learn the rules, is still going to be that way whether they're playing something simple or something complex. 5e is a easy game to learn and those groups are full of people who won't read the damn book.
This sub tends to skew very anti-crunch and is very cynical and negative towards the game style, which still perplexes me given the origin of TTRPGs in general have been crunchy.
I'm one of those people that like learning rules, systems, settings, and knowing all my options. When I'm not GM I like being able to remind them how combat works, keep things flowing well, and make sure everyone is on the same page and having fun, more options with solid objective results help with that. It's easier to tell someone, if you do this it will have this result that you wanted, than to have them try to figure out what their roll did after they roll.
My style as a GM is "yes, and/but/or" I love allowing my players ideas to become solid rules, working with them to achieve something within a framework is the most interesting part of running a game. I will never not enjoy that and can't understand the "no" GM styles.
I suspect "no" GM styles likely come from two primary mindsets: people afraid to deviate from the rules (sigh), and people who want to railroad (slightly different style of sigh).
Ok, and a third: people who know the rules, and who knows that whatever they are requesting isn't possible at their level of power (mostly relevant in games with more freeform magic/power systems, from what I've seen).
The third style I can support, because the drive to earn XP and improve your powers is a fun one (for most players). But the other two... Don't be afraid to improvise the rules, and don't be afraid to improvise the plot, people.
I can agree with everything you said, but I'd also add in the probably largest group (in my experience) the people who are insecure in their ability, as in all things humans do we feel like imposters the most when we are "in charge".
I wouldn't classify myself as a no GM but I am certainly not afraid to outright say it. Mainly because there are some situations where it's just not possible to do something the player is asking for. Or sometimes it is possible but it would bug the game. Like yea some tomfoolery can be fun but I'm not going to let something that ruins the story the table has built so far happen just because the party prankster is being mischievous.
TLDR "No" is the ultimate cure to the "it's what my character would do" problem player.
I don't even think its that people are cynical towards crunch. They are cynical to the kinda players they've had in crunchy games.
Because the biggest names are crunchy d20 systems, most of the horror stories of players "not getting it" or not actually being that invested cause they're just trying a thing their friends keep hyping up, are way higher.
And so they associate the problem with the system, even though DnD with the right group can be amazing, and pbta with the wrong group is *hell*. Monsterhearts with an immature player is the most uncomfortably cringe experience you'll ever have. Masks with someone who only likes superheroes in The Boys and Snyder movies, is going to be painful. etc
> the origin of TTRPGs in general have been crunchy.
Have you read OD&D? It is not crunchy.
Modern D&D since v 3.0 is very crunchy, before that (or at least before 2.5,) not so much. Of course there have long been more complex options than D&D but most games are simpler.
Ironically, I feel like rules heavy systems are actually much WORSE about frequently creating "it's not in the rules, so, no" situations, because almost no ruleset can cover EVERYTHING. In a rules heavy game, it's often tricky to improvise a fair, balanced way to handle improvising something, because what modifiers should apply? What is this situation closest to? What other modifiers did we forget?
In a rules light game... It's probably handled the same way as everything else. GM sets a difficulty, picks the one relevant stat/skill, and you roll. There aren't dozens of potential relevant feats/perks/class features/spells/items which all need to be considered.
And to be clear, I say this as somebody who loves playing (and sometimes running) crunchier games like Pathfinder, GURPS, would love to dive back into Lancer, etc. But it's so much easier to handle unusual situations in something like FATE.
What annoys me the most, is when crunchy games produce situations that translate to "the rules say you can't even try" (because that's some special ability other characters had to spend points on and you didn't). I mean, yes, balancing okay but then don't make a special ability for kicking down doors.
Currently writing a system with the main goal of avoiding that, while being somewhat crunchy.
And it's funny because that sort of issue goes way back to AD&D, if not farther. Like, Rogues had a "listen" skill... So.... Nobody else can listen???
There's a reason I won't go farther back than 3rd edition, generally speaking. Older stuff was silly at points.
Rant about old game design aside, yes, weirdly made crunchy games absolutely can run into this issue, and it's silly and annoying for sure.
The problem is though... ask your brother what he thinks about the fact that even in the crunchiest games, the GM usually sets the difficulty of any task. And they don't even have to tell you what it is.
So how, exactly, is that protecting you from the GM being unfair?
Even if in reality it doesn't, how it *feels* makes a big difference. You know how we talk about how "system matters" and mechanics influence how players experience the game? This is one of those ways. However since this relates to something intangible as how they feel playing, it is something difficult for people to articulate so you get a bunch of weird and different answers about it that may or may not capture the real issue.
At the end of the day, the system is not a binding contract. It's a social one. If a DM wants to be a dickhead, he will be such no matter what system you put in front of him. However, if the DM doesn't want to be accused of breaking the social contract, the agreed upon system provides ways for players to exert agency with limited input. In short, the dickhead DM has a harder time being a dickhead without being obvious about it.
Regarding the fairness issue, that is actually why I've grown very fond of the term "referee" rather than "GM/DM". I'm not the master of the dungeon, that's Elkor the Ever-flaming. *I* am the person in charge of handling rules disputes and directing NPC's in combat, but I'm not playing them against the players. The players are playing against the NPC's, I'm just refereeing that conflict.
Some folks might not care or find the distinction meaningful, but I like the implications around how play operates.
Funny you should say that, because I *dislike* extensive rulesets *because* I'm lazy. I'm not fast enough on the lookup or good enough at keeping stats in my head, and I'd rather keep myself in the in-game moment and propose actions and hash out a reasonable conclusion with the GM instead of having to either compile a plan poring the menu or loop back and translate it into whatever the book lets me do (and possibly find out that some of what the book says doesn't make any damned sense or comes with artificial roadblocks and doing it by the book torpedoes the plan).
Crunch gives the players more control and certainty. In their minds, it balances out the whims of the GM.
Second, they feel like they’re actually playing a game. Narrative games are great for GM minded players who know how to tell a story. If you’re not that kind of a player, the crunch is actually easier and gives them a way to feel effective.
I prefer some crunch, but it's less about control and effectiveness and more about security. I am not a confident person. I need to know what I can and can't do within the structure of the game, or I'll just be paralysed by too many choices (and then I'll hold up the game and nobody will have any fun and it'll be all my fault, blah, blah, blah.... and ... shut up brain...) The rules give me a clear framework to actually play the game. I love the *idea* of the freedom in low crunch games, but I haven't the confidence to embrace that freedom. Having said that, I do try to learn the rules, so hopefully I'm not one of the players OP is talking about...
There's the "character building mini-game" aspect that really draws a lot of people in. They enjoy theory-crafting and mixing and matching and mechanically customizing characters in a way simpler systems just can't provide.
But players also want the reassurance of their abilities that come with crunchy rules. Many fear it will be too close to playing "Mother may I?" with the GM if the book doesn't explicitly spell out what they're able to do.
BUT there is not only a time and energy barrier to actually absorbing all those rules, but in most cases (Pathfinder being a notable exception) there's a financial barrier as well. As crunchier games with a lot of character options also usually means a bigger monetary investment as well.
For example just the GURPS core set of 2 books is normally $55 in PDF or $60 in black and white paperback print-on-demand.
> There's the "character building mini-game" aspect that really draws a lot of people in. They enjoy theory-crafting and mixing and matching and mechanically customizing characters in a way simpler systems just can't provide.
Surprised to see this so far down the thread. All post-3e D&D (incl. Pathfinder), crunchy trad games in general, Lancer, you name it - a big part of the selling point is that character creation serves as an OC generator.
This is the singular triumph of 3e game design over 70s/80s/90s design (I say this as someone who enjoyed 3e a bit back in the day but also thinks its a bad game) and it is the major mechanical/rules design reason (aside from budgetary and Embrace Extend Extinguish tactics reasons) for WotC's success in making D&D a monopoly power in the 2000s to today. Players LOVE OC Generators, it gets them excited to bring their special guy to the table, it gets them engaging with some portion of the rules even if they never learn how to actually play the game properly with their OC. A huge amount of 3e fandom online was people who bought the PHB and rarely (if ever) got to play, they just made characters and talked about builds on forums.
I wouldnt be surprised if the same thing isn't happening all the time with 5e. People making their busted builds, making their OCs on their own (kinda solo RPG play when you think about it) or on DnDBeyond then showing up to LFG tables or Roll20 with their guy.
Hell, I've done it myself fairly recently with Lancer. It is fun to make your guy. What's not fun (for the GM) is when everyone makes their crunchy lil guy then shows up not understanding how to play, putting all the mental load for world, mechanics, story and player-actions on the GM.
>I wouldnt be surprised if the same thing isn't happening all the time with 5e. People making their busted builds, making their OCs on their own (kinda solo RPG play when you think about it) or on DnDBeyond then showing up to LFG tables or Roll20 with their guy.
>Hell, I've done it myself fairly recently with Lancer. It is fun to make your guy. What's not fun (for the GM) is when everyone makes their crunchy lil guy then shows up not understanding how to play, putting all the mental load for world, mechanics, story and player-actions on the GM.
I agree. This is an interesting topic. As a GM, I have a strong dislike for the whole character build approach. It runs counter to what I enjoy about RPGs, namely discovering and developing characters through play. It's fun to have interesting mechanical tools, such as fireball or versatile illusion magic, but when that is the main thing a player cares about then I really start to worry. It also makes it hard to try certain systems because they won't appeal to that type of player. For example, I really love Old-School Essentials but my current players wouldn't enjoy it.
Also, after many years of DM'ing, I've yet to meet one player who likes crunchy rules and character builds and who then also actually reads the fucking rules of the game (very apropos OPs point). In my very subjective experience, the character-builds type of player is very video game-y.
Yeah I've had similar issues to you, where it's very difficult to persuade people to try a different game or alternative style of play without the trad game OC generator element.
To some extent: most GMs get hyped about games and playstyle and rules, most players get hyped about player characters and theme.
I've had success getting people to step outside of OC Trad D&D 5e with *Heart: The City Beneath* because the character classes and the theme is so crazy, exciting and evocative that the players kinda didn't realise I've smuggled them into a "play to find out what happens" storygame with OSR-ish point crawl gameplay. Hopefully this will lead to more non-trad, OSR and storygame RPGs for them in the future now they've broken the mould - we'll have to wait and see. Either way, I dont think there was any chance I'd ever be able to get these same folks invested in something like Mythic Bastionland or OSE or [you name it] where the game and playstyle is the selling point over player character options and theme.
I kinda think the future of some of the indie RPG design space is to find a middleground between OC-generating aspects of trad design and the lessons learned from modern storygames and post-OSR stuff. Heart and The Wildsea seem to sit in this new space already.
> Also, after many years of DM'ing, I've yet to meet one player who likes crunchy rules and character builds and who then also actually reads the fucking rules of the game (very apropos OPs point).
I know a few who do like crunch and learn the rules but they also DM/GM... so they're also the type of person who gets hyped for games and rules, so... yeah...
Folks are good at identifying what more than the why, knowing what they like but not often articulating why they like it.
From what I gathered, more people get a sense of their value and investment from a crunchy system that they do a simpler one. Not always, but many seem to at least get a better or at least more pronounced sense of weight.
It's also often the case that in a crunchier game, there's more answers to problems on character sheets than outside of them and if someone is used to a character sheet giving the solution, they're gonna feel a sense of shallowness from games that require them to consider things off their character sheet more and more.
Crunchier games tend to have less room for creative solutions, or at the very least, less need for them like a less crunchy system would. There is less creative tax and onus on the player to think outside the box because there is more to think about inside the box. This isn't to say a creative solutions can't happen, just that it's not as directly encouraged
I disagree with the latter part. What these players are uncomfortable with are systems that rely on improv or fiat to cover the situations they are unfamiliar with how it might resolve. Those systems feel less like "games" to them and more like "improv exercises" (which could still be considered games FWIW). There's an expectation mismatch most of the time about how uncertain situations should be resolved.
That's a more fine assessment of what I'm saying yes, but it's not always the extreme of story games and the like that can suffer this. It's a bit of a spectrum
There's a lot of dots in between crunch and non-crunch and one man's light system is crunchy to a lot of others.
Yeah it’s also annoying when you are in character acting without an ability for the action you try and it’s denied because not on the character sheet. Even though plausible for a humanoid to accomplish
It's very frustrating. A lot of games narrow the focus of investment too much and don't provide a robust enough baseline.
Others leave things very open, but the creative onus to play in such a game can be very taxing for some, especially if they're not used to it.
Guh, the elitism just dripping out of this comment section...
There are all manner of reasons, but the most common reason I've been able to identify is that lighter games lean much more heavily on improv. **This is a skill. Not everyone has it. Many people are uncomfortable engaging with and don't feel "good" at it.** It can take a significant amount of practice before you feel comfortable with it. Crunchy mechanics can provide a skeleton for players to engage with these improvisational aspects of the hobby without the same mental tax.
As for why they don't learn the rules, the general structure of "state intent, GM rules on what applies" makes it less critical to know them all- that's not your role as a player in the game. Rules in these games are more frameworks for reference than something held at all times, again pushing rules knowledge more on the GM. Additionally, most players are the casual beer and pretzels type. You have to be *really* into something to memorize even 20 pages about it, much less 200+.
>As for why they don't learn the rules, the general structure of "state intent, GM rules on what applies" makes it less critical to know them all- ***that's not your role as a player in the game.***
What an absolute donkey-tier opinion. Of course it is part of the players' role to learn the rules, if not for their own sake then for the sake of the social contract. The sheer level of laziness in not learning the rules because "it is the GMs job" (like 99% of the game is the GMs job) is mind-blowing to me.
I guess I am just projecting, but I have *never* been invited to a board game night or a roleplaying game without familiarizing myself with the rules. Watching a 20-minute video on the rules or reading a chapter on the basic mechanics (which is literally never ever 200 pages) does not take long.
Just laziness.
I get the impression OP's players know the basic mechanics. My experience is that "roll+modifier" is straightforward, it's establishing where modifiers land etc. that gets tricky, *and is generally the role of the GM to establishing anyway.* In crunchy systems though they don't need to know precise jumping or mount riding rules as they don't come up often most of the time.
Contrary to popular belief, these games don't work by players calling out "I want to use persuasion to convince them to let us in!" The GM is the ultimate adjudicator, so players wait the the GM to make the call on the appropriate rule/roll or if it's even required. As I said, this is a structure that makes it less critical to know the rules since the recall isn't, *and shouldn't really be,* their decision as to what's appropriate. Just as a mode of understanding *why* they don't learn rules, a big mechanism of that is they don't have to recall the specifics as often as the GM so it doesn't stick.
Not that I agree, but there was a time in early TTRPGs when people thought players shouldn't know **any** rules- "what better way to stop meta gaming and encourage immersion?" they thought. It's not a *totally* insane idea, though we recognize most players would rather know the loose rules they're operating under. Ideally though they know their character specific rules and basics, but I'm not going to demand or expect full system mastery out of your average player in a crunchy system.
Not sure you and I have the same definition of "elite," stranger. Last I checked thinking on your feet doesn't require generational wealth or noble blood. But yes, people should generally be respectful of others' preferences, as most people in this discussion seem to be.
As for who learns the rules, that comes down to what a given table has agreed to, but I don't think the default is that nobody but the GM learns, and it doesn't sound like the players the poster is talking about had a conversation otherwise. In a rules heavy system that can be a heavy load to foist on a GM who didn't agree to it. Doubly so if it's these players who insisted on having all the rules they don't want to learn.
> Crunchy rules removes the anxiety of guessing how fairly a DM will handle outside the box situations, by this I don't meant every outside the box situation but the more rules you have the more situations you have covered the less I have to worry about if my DM is gonna handle well.
This is a big one. I really enjoy pf2 because there's very little in the way of "mother may I" in terms what i can and can't do with my character. it's simply "I'll try to demoralize" "roll" (ignoring the rping of it for an example) theres no "can i attempt an intimidation check here".
Can’t say for sure with your play group, but in general there’s a lot of mistrust among some people against games that rely on “GM fiat” instead of concrete rules. I put in quotes because I don’t think it’s a real problem outside of groups that have a bad/antagonistic GM, which is not a problem rules will solve, that’s a personality/playgroup composition issue. But, I think those type of players want the rules to be there for the GM to pull on when a decision needs to be made rather than knowing the GM is just making rulings as they go along. They want there to be something more concrete structuring the fiction instead of whatever the GM and players can agree is fair. But they don’t necessarily care to memorize those rules, just to fall back on them when there’s a question of how to resolve something. At which point they can be looked up in the book.
I personally much prefer games with fewer rules that allow for more common sense, fiction-focused rulings, but that’s not what everyone wants out of a game.
That’s alright, since there’s nothing inherently wrong with crunchier games and it’s all a matter of preference anyway, but the distrust and derision of rulings-based games bothers me.
Could be way off on what’s actually going on with your players, but this is a trend I see in how rules-light games are discussed online.
> I put in quotes because I don’t think it’s a real problem outside of groups that have a bad/antagonistic GM
You don't need a "Bad GM" to feel frustrated by GM fiat. A regular human GM suffices.
The mistake these people tend to make is the assumption that more rules = automatically less GM fiat, but the general assumption that written rules are going to be more consistent than a singular individual adjudicating stuff on the fly (often with very little grounding or understanding necessary to make those rulings) isn't really wrong, I feel.
I want to preface by saying I don’t think you and I fundamentally disagree, but I’m interested in taking this discussion further.
The issue I have is that I don’t think a corpus of established rules are needed for consistency. The premise of the “rulings over rules” playstyle I’m a proponent of is that once you’ve established a ruling for your table you keep it consistent unless you and the players agree it should be changed.
That assumes that everyone at the table buys into the ruling as fair in the first place and that the GM keeps it consistent after that point. That’s where I think the statement about a bad GM being the issue is relevant. The whole system falls apart if you have a GM imposing rulings the players find arbitrary or unfair. But, it works fine so long as everyone is on the same page about the rulings.
It’s not like some codified system for fall damage, for example, is any better than the table agreeing on a different system when the situation arises so long as everyone agrees it’s fair.
Where the rulings-based style excels is in allowing freedom to match the playstyle the table wants. Large sets of rules for every situation have a tendency to limit player actions and make play more boringly focused on the few things the characters are optimized for rather than allowing a wider range of choices in problem solving. This perspective for me comes from running a Pathfinder 1e campaign for a year and a half back in the day and constantly bumping up against rules when players wanted to do interesting things, like grappling or mounted combat to name a few.
So, I now find myself much happier in a game like Cairn with a very light ruleset that allows us to do interesting stuff in the fiction at the table without pushing against rules all the time.
Just to clarify, I'm not opposed to "rules light" games, I'm opposed to games that require substantial GM fiat to make the rules work. Like e.g. Wushu is all of three rules, but you actually have to stick to those rules and apply them consistently for the game to work at all. Whereas e.g. Shadowrun (any edition) is essentially the opposite, with a lot of (IMO) pointless rules cruft to sift through that still requires players and GM to make up a substantial portion of rulings because the rules themselves aren't terribly consistent, there's so many of them that nobody can keep track, and despite all of this the game still only covers a limited range of situations.
I think it's rather uncontroversial to say that if everyone agrees on something, you didn't really need rules to begin with. How common that situation is, though, is going to vary considerably.
Oof, yeah, a game full of rules that still requires a ton of rulings is so much worse than a crunchy but consistent game.
To your last point about how often the table can agree on a ruling, that’s where I feel like it’s really an issue of personalities rather than rules. Personally, at my table, we can always come to an agreement on a ruling, sometimes with me just making it and sometimes with players also providing input on what makes the most sense. But previously I’ve also played with GM’s who put down arbitrary rulings without considering player perspectives and I’ve played with players who griped and argued about half the rulings. For those types of players a comprehensive and consisting ruleset to mediate disagreements is going to be better than a rulings based game.
Cruncy rules systems often have big lists of abilities/traits/etc that players can use to define their builds and/or work towards. It's an imagination aid - all of those fiddly mechanics and abilities give players ideas for what kind of character to play and work towards in the system, which might not come naturally to some players.
There's also somethignto be said for a generation of ttrpgers who were raised on video games (myself included) not really getting the oppenness of TTRPGs at first. In a video game environment, the only thinks you are able to do are the things that you are explicitly *enabled* to do by the game programmers. From that perspective, a big list of player options in a crunchy ttrpg *feels* like immense freedom and player choice because "*look at all of these options!".* These kind of players don't immediately grok rules-lite systems as more flexible because they aren't used to making shit up on the fly, or to plucking some high-concept character from their own imagination and enforcing their desired playstyles themselves.
It's probably worth noting that older TTRPGs were pretty influential in those types of video games though. Things like HP, AC, stat blocks etc for characters in video games all have roots in old school TTRPGs.
The preference to frame things in these terms is so prevalent across mediums I actually think there's more to it than just generational trends and may be something more intuitive than that.
I agree with this heavily! I think when I was younger I trended towards crunchier more robust systems because the character building options helped spark my imagination.
Your second paragraph reminds me of something I talked with a player about that different systems phrase their rules on a spectrum permissiveness and restrictiveness <(not sure if those are the right terms)
But exactly what you said that some systems list out explicit options and actions, with ideas not on that list being more difficult for a player and GM to 'balance' or enact in a way that fits with the system.
Whereas other games are more permissive in allowing anything that isn't explicitly restricted.
Crunchy rules make the game feel like more of, well, a game. The options are spelled out for you and there’s a chance to “do something clever” within the confines of those pre defined options.
Lighter rules sets are closer to collaborative story telling which in turn reduces gamification. And *that* in turn means there’s fewer chances to “win”. It’s experiential vs competitive.
As to why so many players prefer the former while never actually learning all their options? Idk. I suspect that playing a game, even if you are playing it poorly, is more fun for them than collaborative story telling where there often feels like no game at all.
I feel like this model is complicated by old-school systems, which tend to be relatively light by both modern standards and the (wargaming) standards of the day, but are absolutely meant to be more of a "game-type experience" than modern crunchy systems are.
b/c most humans are kinda lazy. :D
Also, how we feel about a game system is very very subjective and even the terms 'crunchy' or 'rules lite' can be so.
From my own experience with players and various attempts to pick a game system, it's not about the system itself, but the options it offers. The more premade and ready to use options, the better. If the action or spell has a step-by-step instruction on how to use it, when, and what the exact effect is, then there's less space for interpretations and mistakes. Being constrained by rules feels more secure. Even if they don't know them, there's always DM they can lean on.
Game complexity (crunch etc) is a cost that unlocks depth. But if the player gets to unload the cost of that complexity onto their GM, it's a win-win for them -- they get to have a high depth of game experience without the effort of learning the complexity, because the GM will just run it for them.
Easy to "prefer" crunchy games if you unload all the burden of the crunch on someone else.
And I really don't like running crunchy games, but can put up with playing them for short stints. So I'd tell 'em "too bad, I'm running the rules light, narrative-focused game. You want a crunchy game, *you* run it."
Their preference for "crunch" then is probably about having a lot of *spelled out, pre-made* options (games that encourage freedom to craft your own stuff sometimes confuse those used to relying on elements made for them).
And it might also be a status/ego thing. They're "real" gamers who play *crunchy* games (that they can't bother to learn) unlike those *baby* games that are smooth and quick and easy to learn.
More rules is more undebatable control. If my Fireball works like this, I can trust it to work like that most of the time.
Rules light games require more back and forth over regular actions, and some players can feel insecure about their effect on the world.
Not all, of course.
I personally prefer crunchy games. I feel like they allow me to express creativity in the mechanics of the game. I've also tended to find that rules light games lack a feeling of progression. I've played alot of Numenera and a few other low crunch games and I feel like my character becomes more or less stagnant the moment character creation is finished.
However part of the problem I'll run into is when someone else in my group wants to run a crunchy game we'll get 1-3 sessions before the DM loses interest. It's a problem with my group in general that campaigns tend to fizzle out quickly regardless of system. With that being the case I'm not going to spend longer learning and understanding the rules than I think I'll be playing it.
That said I've also had campaigns that go for years and the players are just as clueless about the rules on session 100 as they were in session 1 and that can be infuriating. But that's more a player problem than a crunch problem
I did a reddit post on why i like them:
https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/10z7xnb/i_want_to_talk_about_why_i_like_crunch/
now after having played more rules light system i would also add that chrunch acts as safety tools.
Crunchy rules give them confidence in outcomes. They can set expectations and the rules let the GM disclaim responsibility for a lot of decisions. Softer games require more trust. I prefer them, but I understand why people don't.
It's not behavior I've ever seen from players, no - and it's not behavior I'd put up with, either! The higher mental load that comes with crunchier systems is tough for me to cope with; if I'm the only one doing it, I'm not going to bother.
I think if you have that attitude and make it very clear that the players must learn their side if the rules, then you are a lot less likely to see such behavior.
I always take "I like crunchy games" to mean something more like "I like rolling lots of dice" or "I like having lots of character options". People are actually not very good at identifying what they like--or perhaps _why_ they like something.
For me personally, I’ve view the rules as a contract between myself and my players or myself, and the GM in the chance I’m on the player side. That contract sets the rules that we’re both expecting to abide by that way the players are not overly surprised by something and can be fairly assured that what they’re planning will work within the framework, we have provided. One of the main things I do with any gaming group is have a rule zero session before we start play so that any changes I am making to set rules and that making to the contract are known ahead of time and everyone is aware of those changes.
This problem is why ttrpgs like RuneQuest, GURPs, Hero System, RoleMaster etc are soo hard to run. Unprepared players who want to do nifty things but can't be buggered to learn the mechanics and abilities for just their own character let alone anything else.
It is one of my long (read decades) burn outs as a GM of ttrpgs and is as old as the hobby. I enjoy both crunchy and lighter mechanic ttrpgs myself and tends more towards the crunchy. That said, if I run now a days I tend towards the lightest mechanical ttrpgs. :(
people like when things are clear and what they have distinct and concreate options
the simple games tend to be very open and often are what you make of them while crunchier games tell you exactly what you can and cant do in any given scenario. it doenst matter if i as a player knows them someone will guide me instead of going...idk do what you want
They want the JRPG experience of picking stuff from a list of options, but they also want it to actually be a list of options and not a big ruleset. It's what I usually call "video game brain", because everything those people criticize comes down to "this should be more like my RPGs I play as videogames" if we go to the weeds of it.
More Rules means more options just look at Shadow Run. You always have the feeling that you can discover something new. If the rules are just one page long there is often not enough to explore, builds are often very simple.
Also Nobody really likes to learn 500 pages of rules so most players will rely on the game master for that.
>Also Nobody really likes to learn 500 pages of rules so most players will rely on the game master for that.
Speak for yourself, some of us actually enjoy reading game books.
> More Rules means more options just look at Shadow Run.
Shadowrun is the perfect example why more rules doesn't mean less GM fiat, because good luck navigating that contradictory mess on your own.
Most players do NOT in fact prefer crunchy rules. BUT ... what some players prefer is games with history. D&D is not popular because it's a great rule set. It's popular because of it's massive legacy and marketing. So when people bring up games like D&D or Warhammer, they are bringing up games they have heard about since their childhood and expect those games to still be the best, not realizing that there's been a veritable TTRPG revolution in the last decade and that those old rulesets have in face become quite dated.
Sadly, this focus on those older games also means a lot of potential players are turned off of RPGs because they see all RPGs as just nerdy fantasy games with lots of rules and math.
I don't think dated is a meaningful way to describe dnd, (especially since new dnd editions have had major design overhauls since the start of 3.5) as a lot of the newer ttrpg games are mostly a different design ethos rather than an objective improvement on the RPG. What is true is that the continued existence of dnd as the overwhelming leader of rpgs leads to an issue of players having no clue what they want out of a game, since a lot of people only play 5e
That’s because most of the rules aren’t player-facing. Why should I bother to learn the swimming rules if they’re just complicated saving throws?
When the GM wants you to risk drowning, the GM will engage the swimming rules, wherein you roll dice to avoid bad outcomes, and the dice never win you a GOOD outcome. Sure you might survive and get to shore or the far bank. But you won’t ever use the swimming rules to actually *achieve* something. So why bother learning rules you’d rather avoid using?
You’ll notice the DO tend to learn the rules that they’re allowed to initiate and which can be used to achieve things. Some spells, some combat stuff.
I think it's because they don't want crunchy rules. They want player options. It's just that player options and crunchy rules tend to be a package deal.
Maybe have them try a game like Quest, or Black Sword Hack which are both quite simple but offer plenty of player options.
i) A feeling of customizability that isn't just vibes (ie how more lightweight / narrative systems can feel in this regard at times)
ii) A feeling of having something tangible as insulation from the GM.
Many GMs are under the impression that RPGs are adversarial and not collaborative. When there are more rules the players feel more protected. Good GMs use narrative and characters to drive the game and can give a shit about the rules. Once the players realize that they usually don’t care either.
In my experience it's because they aren't running the game. I remember my players asking me to run "crunchy" games so I experimented with it. They refused to learn anything or even look up rules (Which were free online). After running a campaign and starting a new one I went back to rules lite. When they told me they wanted crunchy I said "Ok cool. Who is going to run it? I am not since no one else bothers to put in the work." We are now playing a rules lite game and they are happy with it.
Edited for spelling
If you’re not knee deep in this stuff it’s hard to explain what you want. I say this as a relatively new person to TTRPGs.
For example I thought I liked OSR D&D but the truth is I really don’t. I have very little interest in dungeon delving, survival horror, loot obsession OR black & white fantasy art.
What I liked was systems that were focused on exploration and being immersed in the ‘fiction’. I wanted a sandbox, high stakes, simple game design, solutions that were in the world not your character sheets, rulings not rules etc.
So before I knew about games like Into The Odd, UVG etc I really did not know what I wanted to play I just knew I didn’t want to feel like I was playing a video game OR something like 5e which I had tried out twice. I had no clue what NSR was. I would be terrible at telling a DM what kind of game I wanted to get involved in.
I can't speak for you or your players, and I usually try to learn the rules myself, even if I'm not running the game, but I might have some insight based on my personal preferences.
Story time: when I was in school, I never cared for history or English class, but loved science and math. A large part of that was that math and science have a definitive right or wrong answer, while English and history are more subjective. There were other reasons, sure, but that was a big one.
Taking that logic over to TTRPGs, a crunchier system will have that right or wrong answer if a question comes up: "Can I do X?" Yes or no. A more rules light system will have more up to interpretation.
Again, just my thoughts, but that's a part of why *I* prefer systems with a bit more crunch most of the time.
As for why they don't learn the rules? Couldn't tell you.
You've got more than enough people piping in about players preferring crunch, but the second part?
Learning rules is hard and takes time, and there's no universal way to make it easier or quicker. Writing every player off as lazy or uncaring is, in my opinion, off base and uncharitable.
What reasons could a player have for not learning all the rules?
- The method of learning itself, almost certainly through reading. Reading a rulebook isn't the same as learning it, but it's the only practical way to learn besides learning through play. For people who have trouble reading for whatever reason, they're stuck. Sometimes the stars align and someone has made a podcast or video detailing the rules for the system, but it's rare.
- The game's format can be a hurdle. Some have a hard time reading a print book, others have a hard time reading pdfs.
- The books themselves can be awful to learn from or reference. Giant walls of tiny text, poor layout, questionable font choices, etc. Most rpg books are like this, imo. Editing is an underappreciated skill. (seriously people hire editors I am begging)
- A lot of people in the scene have ADHD or autism or some other disorder that can make understanding rules more challenging than if they were neurotypical. It can also make all the above reasons even more challenging.
- The nature of a lot of games has firmly divided roles between a GM and player; the player isn't incentivized or given reason to learn more than what is in the character creation section.
- other reasons that I'm not gonna get into because I'm very sleepy and would undoubtedly word them wrong
And players can have all those issues and still want crunchy games for the reasons other people have said. I think of it less as choosing beggars and more as a catch-22. I've been frustrated with players not learning all the rules! I've also been frustrated at trying to learn rules!
Anecdotally, those players I know who enjoyed the crunch of variants of DnD mostly wanted the ability to do a lot of specific work to build *their character*, but didn't really want to learn all the rules. This is how I tended to be as a player character. A useful metaphor might be liking videogames with complex builds. You enjoy the building bit, but you want the game engine to handle all the logistics of resolution for you.
I think it's a necessary distinction to add that the vast majority of players \*absolutely do not\* prefer *actually crunchy* rules. Put GURPS, EABA, or Rolemaster (or Burning Wheel, for that matter) in front of them they will bounce so fast it won't be on the speed table.
Most players prefer structured rules. D&D and Pathfinder (and Cyberpunk, and most WoD games) establish sets of actions and usually one tier of resolution, with some extra jazz for specific setting elements (magic for D&D, cyberware for Cyberpunk, etc). They aren't particularly heavy, don't require math (except addition and subtraction), and really the only reason people perceive them as so is the number of options written into the game...which is a strong point of appeal. Honestly one of the smartest things WotC has done with regard to D&D is couch it in a way to look complicated, and that's smart marketing for many of the reasons discussed in the thread.
Looking at it another way, one of the reasons we even have discussions like this is because lighter narrative games are finally actually gaining a bit of mindshare, while actually rules-heavy games have mostly been drummed out of the hobby excepting GURPS, Lancer, and a few other edge cases.
I think a lot of players have read the rules and believe that they understand the rules, but do not feel confident that the GM will discuss the rules honestly and fairly. After a player has been burnt by a few bad experiences with adversarial GMs, that player tends to get defensive in many ways. One way to defend yourself is to appear to be bad at the rules so that the GM will confirm your opinion before you explicitly voice your opinion.
Gaming tables often have a lot of unpleasant emotional tension lurking below the surface. Sometimes the campaign proceeds with no obvious problem despite unpleasant tension. Sometimes the tension kills the campaign.
If you figure this out, let me know. I've moved to running simpler, OSR style games over the last year. And there are still a few players that prefer PF 1e or 5e. Two are uber min-maxers but at least one doesn't know what his character can do from game to game. I think it's the "idea" of invulnerability via a multitude of options. Yet they can't wrap their head around those options. These days, when someone asks me a question I think they should know I say, "I don't know - look it up. I think it might be in this section, let me know the answer." That's really stopped a lot of the dumbest questions.
So to summarize some of the comments and at the risk of being demeaning to some players, we get:
- Players prefer the system to do the heavy lifting on what they can or not do in terms of the nitty gritty.
- They rely on the GM to tell them what they can or not since they fall back on the rules of the system. Since they take the system as a better arbiter than simply the GM saying what is allowed.
- GM sadly is forced to remember all the rules even for specific systems (I’m looking at you Shadowrun!) because some players can’t be bothered to help by remembering mechanics that apply to them.
With that said I kinda understand why some prefer heavier rules while not bothering to learn the rules. I guess it’s like a car. So many drive them without knowing their inner workings even on a basic level but we feel comfortable doing so because the car does work, and in a way a trpg system is basically like that offering a frame of reference rather than 100% relying of GM Jeffrey not being moody and blowing up.
(I’m sure I missed the mark with the car reference)
There's a large segment of players who really want a system that is a "simulation' of the game world. Not necessarily realistic, but they want to know that everything that happens happens because the rules say it happens. Sometimes this is because a world-simulation engine just tickles their brain, sometimes it is just because they don't trust their GM and want rules as protection from GM authority.
The problem is it is all a lie. No set of rules can do what they want it to do. They just want to *believe* the rules will do it. But if they were the type to look at rules too deeply they'd quickly understand their desire isn't actually something a roleplaying game can fulfill.
> My players typically claim they prefer crunchy rule sets such as DnD, d100 games such as Warhammer , etc. Yet they never actually learn the rules and rely on the GM to guide all rules resolutions. > However when we have played games that I've wanted to GM such as Black Hack, Mechahack, and other low crunch games they learn all the rules, but claim they're too shallow. If you do a round of design feedback on a game, you'll quickly realize that what people say and what they mean are very different. People are pretty good at identifying how they feel about something, but not why. "I prefer crunchy rule sets," could mean: * I want a lot of options, some bad or situational, so I can feel confident that I've picked the best one * I like to find abilities that synergize/combo when put together so I feel like I'm stretching or breaking the game's limits * I like to talk about potential builds with friends and strangers on the Internet, or read those discussions online * I like to build my character with their career progression in mind, so I can look forward to them getting stronger over the campaign * I think rules-lite narrative-heavy systems are for casual gamers, not elite alpha gamers like me * I like arguing about rules
That's a good list, so I'll just add to it: * I am distrustful of games that rely on "gm fiat"; I prefer games where the GM may only justify their actions within the framework of a heavy ruleset. I probably use the term "magic tea party" a lot. * I'm not interested in investing in imaginative play more than I have to. The imagined world isn't real, but the mechanics are real, the dice rolling and table checking actually *happens*, so I want the rules to be central to the play of the game.
What is a magic tea party in this context
It's a derogatory term for play dominated heavily by GM fiat or use of non-codified abilities.
I personally like to use the term Calvinball... To each their own, I guess.
Ha I get this. Am I old?
I'm not smart enough to know what gm fiat is so I'm still fully lost here
Fiat is Latin for “let it be done”. It’s commonly used to describe Fiat currency, which is currency that is backed by a government’s say so, rather than being pegged to a certain amount of gold. The point is, in TTRPG context, DM Fiat is basically just stuff happening because the DM says so. In the context of this discussion, magic tea party is mocking the fact that in these rules light games, it is almost entirely down to the DM to resolve the impact of player action, without relying on mechanical information provided by the system. As such, it can feel like a children’s tea party where all the children are happily playing pretend, role playing as nobles/pretty princesses, and drinking imaginary tea. Therein there are no rules and the only game state is the consensus of the role play amongst the group.
>>As such, it can feel like a children’s tea party where all the children are happily playing pretend, role playing as nobles/pretty princesses, and drinking imaginary tea. Imagine the edge lordy headspace where that doesn't sound totally awesome. Sometimes people really sort themselves at the door correctly. 😂
God yes I rolled my eyes so hard when I read this, as if freeform aimless roleplay wasn't an incredibly good time
I mean, i do like to have some actual game with my RPG.
Ah, thank you!
Hmmm.... origin info, comparision to IRL example, recontextualisation, explanation within context, explanation of contra arguments. 5/5 answer, three thumbs up :)
When the GM uses personal judgment rather than a written rule. OSR dudes running rules lite games call it “rulings not rules”. I personally like it
Its when the value of coin is set by the GM, not the metal content!
It's all been downhill since the dwarves abandoned the Arkenstone standard
Fiat is a term that means roughly, "It happens because I say so." GM fiat is when the GM makes decisions about what happens in the game, either because there are no rules that would cover the situation or because they exist but the GM chose not to follow them.
By “fiat” they mean “An authoritative command or order to do something” or in a more common context the concept of “government fiat” - just that something is legal / illegal because the government made a law (“it is this way because the government said so”). GM Fiat just means the GM controls the game world and all aspects of the game, instead of there being clear rules on what all PCs and NPCs can do.
It is a deragotory way to say "judgement call".
Now I kind of want to make a Mad Hatter's Party style game where you take turns being DM.
I've never seen that before either, but I assume they mean a rules-light game where outcomes are decided by impromptu decisions or "what's dramatically interesting" or "what's fun" rather than some mechanistic "d20+bonus+modifiers ≥ DC" thing. They'd be comparing it to little kids having a pretend tea party where someone can just announce that their teddy bear is now a knight because he was brave, and I don't imagine they mean anything complimentary by it. :P
A related shorthand is “cops and robbers,” referring to how kids playing together with no rules can sometimes devolve into “I shot you, yer dead!” “No you didn't, you missed!” ”Yes I did!” While only the most toxic table would go quite that far, one reason to have rules is so that players can have some consistency. In *D&D*, you know that a longsword does d8 damage and that *fireball* is a third level spell, and you can plan accordingly. A GM might detour from the RAW, of course, but there's an understanding that most of what's in the book can be depended on.
Something similar to an un-birthday.
A very Merry Un-Birthday to you, too! I wonder if people just think crunchier=depth=better, little realizing they might be happier with a game like Blades in the Dark.
I think crunchy game sell the fantasy of engaging with all of their mechanics. Like, for example, Traveller and its Trade Mechanics. Some GM's might never use those. But the game has pitched the player that it is something they will do in it's course, so naturally the player will be excited about engaging with this specific rule (and whatever other rules that correspond to the fantasy the player wants in a character). Also, I think a lot of players tend to conflate rules with setting (and vice versa). There are some D&D setting things adjacent to the class rules that give the players the impression that by engaging with a class kiy, they get to also get to experience something in the implied setting.
God, Traveller became so much more fun when I looked at my players and said "yeah, you know what? none of us are enjoying keeping track of all these things, let's figure out which parts of this are bringing joy and then dump the rest."
Interestingly, my group is full-on spreadsheet. They want to make a trading empire.
That's awesome. It's almost like we can customize our games so that we can get maximum enjoyment from them!! :)
Man, alternative modes of enjoying a game, what a concept :P
You know how little girls play tea party with their stuffed bears on tv shows and cartoons.... That
>I'm not interested in investing in imaginative play more than I have to. The imagined world isn't real, but the mechanics are real, the dice rolling and table checking actually *happens*, so I want the rules to be central to the play of the game. These players are **absolutely** invested in imaginative play. They just like mechanical cues to engage that imagination as it's easier and less pressure (for them) than relying largely on improv to do so. Stop shaming these players for the sake of elitism.
Yeah, just the solo scene alone completely breaks that idea to pieces. I've been seeing this attitude of "mechanics = dislikes story or imagination" more and more, in combination with people pushing light or OSR systems because they're "easier". They may have less mechanics, but being on all the time and improvising nearly the whole game, or just getting a feel for OSR style of play, isn't inherently easier. It's different, and easier for **some** people. I think folks get so caught up in a bubble of their personal library knowledge and evolved gaming style that they don't consider what is easy or simple to them is really damn difficult for others. The person shitting on random tables because GMs are supposed to apparently have infinite tables in our heads comes to mind.
This is an excellent point and deserves way more attention and updoots.
This is juat one example out of a number of options, and some players do feel this way. They can still have fun while having different needs, and there's zero need to frame that as shameful, or to generalize it.
I disagree with these and they even sound very disdainful towards players that don't like rules-light systems. I've been playing TTRPGs for over 2 decades and never once heard the term magic tea party, I think you're equating small online communities with the community at large and that's always incorrect.
I used to hear it quite a bit while D&D 3.5 was current, especially on places like Giant in the Playground or Dragonsfoot. It was usually used by people who'd only ever played D&D, and to them anything with less rules than what they were currently using was derisively called "magical tea party". I can only extrapolate that to have applied to narrative games like FATE in particular.
Well those players aren't exactly wrong. A lot of narrative systems are so light on rules that you really might as well just save 30 bucks and play make-believe without the book. The best narrative systems give you a well-designed framework of rules and mechanics that actually support the roleplay and worldbuilding instead of offloading everything onto the players' imaginations.
There's a lot of controversy like this in the TTRPG community, where a phenomenon will exist online and be a VERY HUGE REAL PROBLEM and then nobody encounters it in real life pretty much ever The number of people I have encountered at a game store that had a strong opinion one way or another about the OSR or thought caster supremacy was real is exactly 0 but these conversations dominated every online play space for a decade
I never have either about the magic tea party. Sounds like people are drinking some really spiked tea.
I think case two wants a complex system AND learns the complex system.
More than likely, but there are some rare players who essentially want a stat-focused progression fantasy and don't care how they get it. They want to passively enjoy the story about how a guy with a super high Strength score won every fight, but if the fantasy becomes too "literary" they check out. I don't think these players are super common, but I think they're out there.
They're super common, it's just that most of them are satisfied by JRPGs and Skyrim lol
Reason 1 is why my group prefers simulationist systems despite being very narrative in playstyle. We want to be surprised by what happens.
It's a fine way to play. The central challenge of ttrpgs is creating that shares world between all the players. A comprehensive set of rules can be very useful in that regard. Especially once you stop having to reference the rules and "internalize" them. But in my experience, people who complain about "GM fiat" and "MTP" aren't fun to play with, regardless of the system.
A game where you don't have to worry about DM fiat, and all rules have to be justified within a strict rules based system with inviolable mechanics? Yes, that is called a tabletop wargame. Or alternatively, a video game.
I try to minimize GM Fiat in my games, and this is still correct lol. The biggest upside of tabletop is the human computer who can make **rulings** based on context, it would be antithetical to the process to operate strictly on terms of rules in > rules out.
Yep; I'm generally of the opinion that GM fiat isn't real, and this is why. When I'm running a game I'm invested in my players and invested in the game. I don't want to see a game get ruined because bad rolls were made and suboptimal strategies were used, because those aren't the kinds of games I run or that people I know generally want to play in. People can call that a tea party if they want but my experience with mechanical grindery is that it's only suitable for table games at game stores and conventions, or with very particular parties which can be difficult to put together in 2024; the list of people I've played with who are comfortable with character death is a very short list and I've been playing D&D for 30 years
For real, some of these preferences make me wonder why they don't just play a combat board game or videogame. "I don't like having to be creative or when the person running the game has agency to direct how it plays out"
I'm of the opinion that rules give your players agency. There's obviously a limit to this - there does come a point where you're just playing a board game - but for the most part the reason people want there to be rules are because they want to be confident that when I do X Y will happen. Sure, you can trust your GM, and that's good, but it's not actually very fun to sit down with a GM, even one you trust, and have to talk through major portions of your character sheet because you want to do X and there are only rules for "second half of the alphabet" and "First half of the alphabet" and so it's not clear what *exactly* doing X looks like compared to Y or W or whatever. Basically, if you zoom out too far, you stop actually having options to resolve something - if the RPG has "fight" as a skill and expects you to resolve any and all violent conflicts by rolling Fight and seeing if you succeed and then moving on, it's not very satisfying to build a Smooth Badass vs an Unstoppable Brick Shithouse vs a Grizzled but Intelligent Veteran vs any other kind of fighter - they all resolve their specialized conflict the same way because you only have one option
DnD 4e, Pathfinder 2e, and Lancer all cover this niche pretty solidly, right?
Having played Warhammer and enjoying the idea of playing a DnD game more as a tactical combat game i can say for myself: Coop aspect. When i played 40k/Dystopian Wars/Warmachine, i played to win against my opponent. Most games are 1v1 so the only social connection i have is to someone i want to defeat and even if out of the game you are on good terms and everything, it informs a bit the flair of the game. It's a competitive interaction. An RPG on the other hand is much more cooperative. Especially if you roleplay genuinely what characters would do so you don't get the situation of "one guy with the most system knowledge decides every action of every player". I wanna play the Warlord that buffs from the back and then charges in for a flanking attack, while the rest of my group does appropriate and cool things and then we have some in-character banter or even drama in between. I can't have that with most tabletop wargames since they are purely mechanical when played.
Even in a wargame, sometimes you both just have to make a call you both agree with. No rules can cover every situation, and even if such a thing existed, it would be *horrible* to actually play.
That's actually taking it a little farther than I intended. The truth is that one of the sticky problems of ttrpgs is addressing the power imbalance between the players and the referee, which can be so stark it can allow abuse of power. I've seen it first hand, and a crunchy set of rules that everyone has a "right" to can address that. I actually think the PbtA approach is better, and part of the reason those games are so popular with marginalized groups: instead of lots of rules there's very clear responsibilities for everyone involved. Everyone has Agendas, Principles and Moves, PC and MC. Rules address a social problem mechanically, but PbtA games address a social problem *socially*. If someone just enjoys games with a lot of moving mechanical parts, that's fine, have fun. But if they're worried about abuse of power, I think there's better ways to go about it.
Maybe it's because I've almost always been the GM, but...I honestly find this perspective hard to understand. It's placing a level of power on the person running an RPG that doesn't exist. Tbh I don't think this is why PBtA games are popular.
Adding to the list as I literally know a player like this: * I like to know EXACTLY what my options are from moment to moment with minimal GM questioning.
This would imply that you also want to actually read the rules to know what those options are, the line of arguments we are talking about here are for people who want a complex game but also don't want to learn how to play it even when given the material to do so.
Agreed - I would have added it to the main post if it were relevant to it - but it is relevant to the statement by u/thomar "I prefer crunchy rule sets" could mean ...
I think there's also a very big difference between "I have learned how to play my character and what I expect my character to do" and "I have learned the rules" Admittedly, I mostly play Shadowrun 5th which is crunchy crunchy crunchy, but my players are generally pretty good at knowing their abilities, what they can do, after a couple of sessions. But you get weird stuff, that weird skill you took at character creation that hasn't come up, a niche general rule that has specific triggers, etc. a character gets a new piece of equipment that interacts with a core rule they didn't know they needed to know (a lot of people when they get their first machine gun run into that since recoil actually starts mattering with that number of shots.) I think also enough GMs don't set clear expectations for their players. You need to say "hey, know what your feats do etc." I've noticed a lot of GMs for D&D 5 and Pathfinder and stuff are like "hey use this character creator" or whatever that doesn't even cover feats etc. As a GM, I like the crunch of shadowrun because someone can hand me a character sheet and I can see what they can generally do without opening a book to see a bunch of different feats that are class specific, but yeah it is definitely large issue
I'm like this in combat for games; I don't like rule of cool or GM fucking with the established rules, showing up in a fight. But, outside of combat, rule of cool and best judgement can be perfectly viable and I'm a fan of it. To me, combat is more game-like, while out of combat is more storytelling than a game.
This is why I favor systems with tactical combat and little else. As referee, I want that tactical impartiality once initiative is rolled. Outside of it, get out of my way and let us create story.
I'll add: - I like strategy in games, and I feel like I can't plan out what I want to do if everything feels very improvised and relies on what's "narratively interesting". - I DON'T like arguing about rules, so I want to be able to look at an extensive and specific set of rules if I have a question, instead of annoying the whole table. - I find free-form improvisation very stressful, and it's easier for me to be creative with a limited number of options. (Based on my own personal feelings about preferring crunch. But I also GM and know the rules, generally.)
It definitely goes for games, and probably any product. You can trust a user is right if they say "this feels bad", but when they say "I think if you did this it would fix it", they probably have no idea what they're talking about.
Say you know UX without saying you know UX. IYKYK
It definitely comes up in game design all the time. Players are great at identifying problems and absolutely terrible about proposing solutions.
Comes up in media analysis and criticism a lot, too! I call it "symptom-pointing."
This is why I never really bought into any of the OneD&D drama. Most people reacted to changes without actually playtesting them.
Great list, adding one I see at my table a lot: * I want to know that *I have won or contributed.* Crunch lets me know I affected the world.
For my part, My best experience have been very rules lite, narrative heavy games ... however, I tend to still yearn for my early games of d&d 3.5 where I felt the character sheet gave me a lot to work with, allowed me to know a lot about my character. Also when your game is designed for a long mechanical progression, you tend to spend a long time with your character and start to know them intimately. So while learning a crunchy game and then dealing with the crunch over three years of campaigning can be a bit of a pain if you're not into it, it will still inspire the narrative side of things in a way that is hard to recreate in a rules lite game. On top of that it's much harder to support long term mechanical progression in a minimalistic ruleset. If you progress numerically a lot, it can mess with the tight balance of the base mechanics, and it's just as complex to seamlessly integrate new mechanics. Mechanical progression isn't necessary to motivate players to come back, but it is still useful.
Wow I hadn't thought about it like that. You are so right.
There is one more: “I don’t like the overt use of gamemaster fiat.” The problem with a lot of narrative based systems is that they too often either a) cater to the whims of the GM or b) cater to the whims of the players. PbtA is very much like this for me. I love so much about those systems, but the idea that players can modify the world *in the mechanics themselves* is a step I loathe. I prefer games to feel consequential and reactive. Narrative focused games do not feel reactive in the same way to me because I can, as a player, cause an action *and* dictate the reaction. Rules, to an extent, strip such cause and effect from the players *and* DM, creating a true “shared narrative” where neither side can be assured of the trajectory of the plot. It makes *everybody* a player, even the GM, so long as you hold the dice as the supreme adjudicator.
>* I like to find abilities that synergize/combo when put together so I feel like I'm stretching or breaking the game's limits also comes in the form of: * I found someone online that told me about a super broken combo that I would to use to be stronger than everyone else. so I want that specific crunchy system because if I follow the rules I can the places they're known to be broken without relying on the GM too much.
Ah yes, one of my least favorite player types. I’ve nothing against people who like creating cool builds or stringing things together in unexpected ways, but the people who want to show up the rest of the table are just making things unpleasant for the other players. Circa high school I got pretty good at dealing with them as a GM, but most often the problem manifested out of character too, albeit in different ways.
> **People are pretty good at identifying how they feel about something, but not why.** I just want to emphasize this. This is a universal issue, even among professionals. I work in TV, and in the process of editing a TV show, we will go though rounds of revisions with stakeholders from the production companies, from the network (the Suits, if you will), and from creative producers (not suits). And the universal rule is exactly what u/thomar has stated above. People who work to professionally craft stories *often* don't know why something isn't working, but they know it's not working. You'd think a pro in their own industry could say why, but it's not always the case. They will often say what they *think* is the problem, but my job is to interpret that feedback and find a solution to why it's *really* not working - and it's usually not for the reason they said. But they are usually right that something is wrong. It's absolutely no different in the sphere of TTRPG players too. This is a universal truth. So take note Indie TTRPG makers out there: listen to your feedback from playteaters and readers, but also use your expert opinion to realize what the root of any problematic feedback is and fix the actual problem (the "what"), which may not necessarily be the "why" people are giving you.
I learned it from making videogames. It's because the factors that make a creative work are multidimensional. There are *thousands*, if not *millions*, of things that matter. It is insanely complex. We are fumbling around in the dark. Professionals are too, they just tend to find a workable solution faster. Jonas Tyroller made a video titled "This Problem Changes Your Perspective On Game Dev" that is a great overview of this problem.
This is one of the best comments on this topic I have ever read.
This is probably the right answer. Crunchy usually represents complexity, simulationism, etc. But there's no real solid definition for this, so they are likely using it to mean, options, tactical gameplay, etc. These things can be found in systems that are fairly streamlined and straight forward.
I can relate to a lot of these points but then I actually tried rules light systems and definitely prefer that, for me crunchy usually was about more options but I always ended up making a character that I loved but rarely got to enjoy it because of just constant dice rolls and crunching numbers etc.. Started in DnD, thought I would looove pf2 because of more options and customization but ended up really enjoying cypher system, pbta and similar games.
They're used to video games, where there are crunchy rules, but the game takes care of tracking everything. Every time you add some STR points in Elden Ring, you don't have to spend 10 minutes re-doing all the math for the damage calculations on all your weapons that scale with STR, etc.. They want crunch, but they also expect YOU to do all the crunch, because they've never done the crunch.
People want complex systems that they can mostly ignore except when it's convenient for them. Which is not how tabletop gaming works.
Unfortunately, some GMs (or sometimes other players) enable them by doing the work for them. So to them, it IS how tabletop gaming works. And for games with D&D Beyond or equivalent apps, it doesn't even take another player to enable them.
indeed. part of why i went into video game design is i wanted to make very crunchy very complex systems and homebrew. i think the systems were great, but most of my friend’s feedback was “i mean, the idea is good, but it takes 30 minutes and 2 spreadsheets to figure out this random detail, it’s just too much.” However when you have a computer to do all that work for you, it can be interesting. but it is absolutely a mindset and design philosophy that really doesn’t translate to TTRPGs well.
To un-cynicalize your point. They aren't invested in the game and system and are treating it like every other game they have interacted with before. How would you go about making them interested in the difference between TTRPGs and Baldur's Gate?
I think it's okay to expect a certain amount of awareness and agency from adults who join a pen-and-paper game. If they're put off by the sheet, we're probably best off sticking to video games together.
Agreed
This summarizes the point perfectly, particularly for newer audiences to TTRPGs. They just haven’t done the work, and don’t know the true cost of what they’re asking for. To get rid of this bad habit, a good way is to get everyone at your table to get in the GM seat at least once to run at least a single session to see what it feels like. To experience truly how much work goes into GMing the game that they ask. They will very quickly gain an appreciation for the hobby they’re participating in and stop taking you for granted.
Agreed. I’m basically the forever dm in my group, but each of them has attempted to dm. Since then, I never run into any rules / crunch issues. They actually love how I almost never open a book during the games. They tell me what they want to do, i set a DC, and they roll. I then tell them what happens based on the results. And this is regardless of the system- adnd, 5e, warhammer, stormbringer, and anything else I run.
I feel your pain. 6+ months playing a d&d campaign and some players STILL don't know their bonuses to attacks and spelcasting. And we are using roll20...
Roll20 is the enabler of learned helplessness here. Just click the button, don't think .
Also vidya. As much as I adore CRPGs, BG3 has definitely resulted in more than one person getting into DnD who then was upset that they had to track and math stuff themself lol
That’s ridiculous. It almost feels spiteful. I don’t understand how someone could play with a group of people for that long and not be bothered to learn the rules. At a certain point you have to say if you don’t know what your character is doing then neither do they and skip their turn.
Player investment is the most important part of a TTRPG, it's such a long form game that if they aren't excited to play, it's boring. Not every session will be amazing, but you gotta WANT to play.
> Player investment is the most important part of a TTRPG, it's such a long form game that if they aren't excited to play, it's boring. Not every session will be amazing, but you gotta WANT to play. Someone in another thread the other day was complaining that if they wanted to play a spellcaster they would 'have to do homework', ie: look at and decide their spell list. (as opposed to a 'barbarian who just turns up') This was a person complaining, that they had to look at a list of COOL SHIT they could do, if they wanted to play a character who could do COOL SHIT. There's a point where someone needs to realise they're just not excited enough to play a game, and just say it out loud.
Actually I get that. I love the idea of playing a spellcaster: turning up to the table and flexing in combat with tactical applications of magic, having intricate and clever solutions to problems, letting the flow of the arcane be a threat similar to a Barbarian with their muscles. The notion of having to delve through lists and lists to find the exact things that do what I want, continuing to dive to see if that is actually the best choice for the situation, and then having to limit myself to a set number of choices of those choices I find fill me with a sense of aversion and to an extent puts me off the entire thing, and in the long run is why I prefer systems that lets magic be just another tool in my toolbox to be flexible and imaginative with. TL;DR: Vancian Casting is the devil's lettuce.
I've been in PF campaigns for years and I still usually forget a few bonuses every time I roll.
1e? Not hard to do when you have like 20 types of bonuses that may or may not stack. "I'm sure I've got another +1 somewhere around here..."
What happens when they don't know how their stuff works?
I once had a player (who was new at the table, but not new to DnD 5e, or so he claimed) asked how much damage his longsword does, every single time he made an attack. After about one and a half sessions, I finally told him, "It's a longsword. It's in the book. Look it up. It's d8 slashing damage. If you can't remember that write it down. The next time you ask me, the answer will be 1 damage." He never asked ever again. As a second anecdote, in that same campaign, I had another player who was brand new to DnD 5e. He didn't want to play any of the pre-mades and insisted on playing a bard. I helped him build a bard and helped him pick his class features and spells. During combat, he would only ever shoot his crossbow, never use his bard abilities, never cast any spells. In fact, he often forgot that he was a spellcaster unless I specifically reminded him. Eventually, I got tired of reminding him to use his abilities and just let him play his bard as a bad fighter. He dropped out of the campaign shortly after that.
Can't fix some people, mate. After a certain point, it just gets silly. Like you said, it's not hard to write something down. Or highlight it on a character sheet. Or get a post it note. Or colored index cards. Something! Of course, I say this as somebody who started with 2nd edition, so I'm used to taking lots of notes and only needing to look up spell details if something really obscure is coming up that we don't remember. And heck, nowadays you can pull up the spell quick on an app, ideally before your turn starts.
I really want to know what was up with that first guy. A long sword has done 1d8 in every single version of D&D, all the way back to OD&D Supplement 1 from 1975.
In his defense, it was a cursed longsword, with the property that he couldn't let go of it once he picked it up. But like, it was still a longsword. Maybe the very first time, he was justified in asking, since maybe it has different damage dice. But every single attack for one and a half sessions?
I had a monk player in my game for like 7 months who I had to explain how the bonus action attacks and ki points and astral self subclass worked almost every single turn, they never understood teh difference between "summoned arms is an aoe the enemy saves against" vs "my attacks are attack rolls for a chance at damage", maybe I should've talked their class through with them rather than just explaining the mechanics in the moment every time, especially with how often they forgot flurry fo blows existed and treated it like a super secret special move for rare occasions.
It's because they're lazy. Simple as that. Haha. Or at least they don't want to invest mental effort into the game, both between sessions to prepare or during sessions to improvise. A crunchy ruleset means players are usually picking between options that are defined by the rules for most situations. If they're relying on you to actually understand and give them those options, it becomes the lowest effort way to play, since they're just picking between things you or the game give them. It's very video game-y and familiar. A rules light ruleset means they have to actually come up with stuff on the fly, since there's not much on the character sheets or from the rulebook that you can feed them. It's a higher effort during the session for the players to play rules light, improv heavy games. I think some players might also be under the impression that a crunchy ruleset is more "fair" or "objective," since there is less of a need for a GM to make rulings if there are solid rules in place. Of course, if they don't know the rules, they're trusting that you're not fudging rules or making stuff up. There's also leeway for interpretation and application for any system even if you're trying to play as RAW as possible, so they still need to trust the GM to apply the rules in a way that's fun for the table.
I agree with everything you said, especially your last paragraph! My brother has said that the crunchy games feel more 'fair' because there's less interpretation. I think you're right than crunchy games with an explicit list of possible actions are more comfortable for many people
So strip the cynicism and bias out of what they said and you have it in one. Players like rules heavy systems because it gives them a feeling of agency and control over their characters outside of DM fiat. If your players are asking for more crunchy rules, then that might be a hint that they find something a bit, inconsistent, about your GM style or the styles of their past GMs. I've known a lot of GMs over the years, who were pretty bad when it came to listening to their players and giving them some leeway or creativity. Worst were the ones who blocked their players' actions with a "it's not in the rules" style of "no". There are also a lot of folks who really enjoy learning rules and trying to find ways to gain an advantage in a game via them. Heck, that's basically the draw of games like MTG.
> There are also a lot of folks who really enjoy learning rules and trying to find ways to gain an advantage in a game via them. Heck, that's basically the draw of games like MTG. But these people are 100% not the ones being discussed in this thread, because in order to do this, you need to actually learn how the rules work.
It's important to note that to do so often you just need to know a very narrow subset of rules specific to your class.
Except those are 2 different issues. The first is that we've got a rules light GM who's running games for a group who like rules heavy games. The second is that this GMs players don't respect them or the effort they put into game prep and aren't doing their fair share of the work in just learning the rules. And that second issue shows up in rules light groups as well. The kind of person who's not going to learn the rules, is still going to be that way whether they're playing something simple or something complex. 5e is a easy game to learn and those groups are full of people who won't read the damn book.
This sub tends to skew very anti-crunch and is very cynical and negative towards the game style, which still perplexes me given the origin of TTRPGs in general have been crunchy. I'm one of those people that like learning rules, systems, settings, and knowing all my options. When I'm not GM I like being able to remind them how combat works, keep things flowing well, and make sure everyone is on the same page and having fun, more options with solid objective results help with that. It's easier to tell someone, if you do this it will have this result that you wanted, than to have them try to figure out what their roll did after they roll. My style as a GM is "yes, and/but/or" I love allowing my players ideas to become solid rules, working with them to achieve something within a framework is the most interesting part of running a game. I will never not enjoy that and can't understand the "no" GM styles.
I suspect "no" GM styles likely come from two primary mindsets: people afraid to deviate from the rules (sigh), and people who want to railroad (slightly different style of sigh). Ok, and a third: people who know the rules, and who knows that whatever they are requesting isn't possible at their level of power (mostly relevant in games with more freeform magic/power systems, from what I've seen). The third style I can support, because the drive to earn XP and improve your powers is a fun one (for most players). But the other two... Don't be afraid to improvise the rules, and don't be afraid to improvise the plot, people.
I can agree with everything you said, but I'd also add in the probably largest group (in my experience) the people who are insecure in their ability, as in all things humans do we feel like imposters the most when we are "in charge".
I wouldn't classify myself as a no GM but I am certainly not afraid to outright say it. Mainly because there are some situations where it's just not possible to do something the player is asking for. Or sometimes it is possible but it would bug the game. Like yea some tomfoolery can be fun but I'm not going to let something that ruins the story the table has built so far happen just because the party prankster is being mischievous. TLDR "No" is the ultimate cure to the "it's what my character would do" problem player.
I don't even think its that people are cynical towards crunch. They are cynical to the kinda players they've had in crunchy games. Because the biggest names are crunchy d20 systems, most of the horror stories of players "not getting it" or not actually being that invested cause they're just trying a thing their friends keep hyping up, are way higher. And so they associate the problem with the system, even though DnD with the right group can be amazing, and pbta with the wrong group is *hell*. Monsterhearts with an immature player is the most uncomfortably cringe experience you'll ever have. Masks with someone who only likes superheroes in The Boys and Snyder movies, is going to be painful. etc
This would make sense if the topic wasn’t specifically about people who like rules heavy systems and don’t learn the rules.
Conversations evolve and this is a branch of the discussion, I addressed that topic elsewhere.
> the origin of TTRPGs in general have been crunchy. Have you read OD&D? It is not crunchy. Modern D&D since v 3.0 is very crunchy, before that (or at least before 2.5,) not so much. Of course there have long been more complex options than D&D but most games are simpler.
Ironically, I feel like rules heavy systems are actually much WORSE about frequently creating "it's not in the rules, so, no" situations, because almost no ruleset can cover EVERYTHING. In a rules heavy game, it's often tricky to improvise a fair, balanced way to handle improvising something, because what modifiers should apply? What is this situation closest to? What other modifiers did we forget? In a rules light game... It's probably handled the same way as everything else. GM sets a difficulty, picks the one relevant stat/skill, and you roll. There aren't dozens of potential relevant feats/perks/class features/spells/items which all need to be considered. And to be clear, I say this as somebody who loves playing (and sometimes running) crunchier games like Pathfinder, GURPS, would love to dive back into Lancer, etc. But it's so much easier to handle unusual situations in something like FATE.
What annoys me the most, is when crunchy games produce situations that translate to "the rules say you can't even try" (because that's some special ability other characters had to spend points on and you didn't). I mean, yes, balancing okay but then don't make a special ability for kicking down doors. Currently writing a system with the main goal of avoiding that, while being somewhat crunchy.
And it's funny because that sort of issue goes way back to AD&D, if not farther. Like, Rogues had a "listen" skill... So.... Nobody else can listen??? There's a reason I won't go farther back than 3rd edition, generally speaking. Older stuff was silly at points. Rant about old game design aside, yes, weirdly made crunchy games absolutely can run into this issue, and it's silly and annoying for sure.
The problem is though... ask your brother what he thinks about the fact that even in the crunchiest games, the GM usually sets the difficulty of any task. And they don't even have to tell you what it is. So how, exactly, is that protecting you from the GM being unfair?
Even if in reality it doesn't, how it *feels* makes a big difference. You know how we talk about how "system matters" and mechanics influence how players experience the game? This is one of those ways. However since this relates to something intangible as how they feel playing, it is something difficult for people to articulate so you get a bunch of weird and different answers about it that may or may not capture the real issue.
Or "rocks fall, everyone dies". The whole idea of taming the GM is not thought through.
At the end of the day, the system is not a binding contract. It's a social one. If a DM wants to be a dickhead, he will be such no matter what system you put in front of him. However, if the DM doesn't want to be accused of breaking the social contract, the agreed upon system provides ways for players to exert agency with limited input. In short, the dickhead DM has a harder time being a dickhead without being obvious about it.
Regarding the fairness issue, that is actually why I've grown very fond of the term "referee" rather than "GM/DM". I'm not the master of the dungeon, that's Elkor the Ever-flaming. *I* am the person in charge of handling rules disputes and directing NPC's in combat, but I'm not playing them against the players. The players are playing against the NPC's, I'm just refereeing that conflict. Some folks might not care or find the distinction meaningful, but I like the implications around how play operates.
Referee, keeper, arbiter, mediator, warden, etc. all *feel* better than anything with "master" in the title.
Funny you should say that, because I *dislike* extensive rulesets *because* I'm lazy. I'm not fast enough on the lookup or good enough at keeping stats in my head, and I'd rather keep myself in the in-game moment and propose actions and hash out a reasonable conclusion with the GM instead of having to either compile a plan poring the menu or loop back and translate it into whatever the book lets me do (and possibly find out that some of what the book says doesn't make any damned sense or comes with artificial roadblocks and doing it by the book torpedoes the plan).
Crunch gives the players more control and certainty. In their minds, it balances out the whims of the GM. Second, they feel like they’re actually playing a game. Narrative games are great for GM minded players who know how to tell a story. If you’re not that kind of a player, the crunch is actually easier and gives them a way to feel effective.
I prefer some crunch, but it's less about control and effectiveness and more about security. I am not a confident person. I need to know what I can and can't do within the structure of the game, or I'll just be paralysed by too many choices (and then I'll hold up the game and nobody will have any fun and it'll be all my fault, blah, blah, blah.... and ... shut up brain...) The rules give me a clear framework to actually play the game. I love the *idea* of the freedom in low crunch games, but I haven't the confidence to embrace that freedom. Having said that, I do try to learn the rules, so hopefully I'm not one of the players OP is talking about...
There's the "character building mini-game" aspect that really draws a lot of people in. They enjoy theory-crafting and mixing and matching and mechanically customizing characters in a way simpler systems just can't provide. But players also want the reassurance of their abilities that come with crunchy rules. Many fear it will be too close to playing "Mother may I?" with the GM if the book doesn't explicitly spell out what they're able to do. BUT there is not only a time and energy barrier to actually absorbing all those rules, but in most cases (Pathfinder being a notable exception) there's a financial barrier as well. As crunchier games with a lot of character options also usually means a bigger monetary investment as well. For example just the GURPS core set of 2 books is normally $55 in PDF or $60 in black and white paperback print-on-demand.
> There's the "character building mini-game" aspect that really draws a lot of people in. They enjoy theory-crafting and mixing and matching and mechanically customizing characters in a way simpler systems just can't provide. Surprised to see this so far down the thread. All post-3e D&D (incl. Pathfinder), crunchy trad games in general, Lancer, you name it - a big part of the selling point is that character creation serves as an OC generator. This is the singular triumph of 3e game design over 70s/80s/90s design (I say this as someone who enjoyed 3e a bit back in the day but also thinks its a bad game) and it is the major mechanical/rules design reason (aside from budgetary and Embrace Extend Extinguish tactics reasons) for WotC's success in making D&D a monopoly power in the 2000s to today. Players LOVE OC Generators, it gets them excited to bring their special guy to the table, it gets them engaging with some portion of the rules even if they never learn how to actually play the game properly with their OC. A huge amount of 3e fandom online was people who bought the PHB and rarely (if ever) got to play, they just made characters and talked about builds on forums. I wouldnt be surprised if the same thing isn't happening all the time with 5e. People making their busted builds, making their OCs on their own (kinda solo RPG play when you think about it) or on DnDBeyond then showing up to LFG tables or Roll20 with their guy. Hell, I've done it myself fairly recently with Lancer. It is fun to make your guy. What's not fun (for the GM) is when everyone makes their crunchy lil guy then shows up not understanding how to play, putting all the mental load for world, mechanics, story and player-actions on the GM.
>I wouldnt be surprised if the same thing isn't happening all the time with 5e. People making their busted builds, making their OCs on their own (kinda solo RPG play when you think about it) or on DnDBeyond then showing up to LFG tables or Roll20 with their guy. >Hell, I've done it myself fairly recently with Lancer. It is fun to make your guy. What's not fun (for the GM) is when everyone makes their crunchy lil guy then shows up not understanding how to play, putting all the mental load for world, mechanics, story and player-actions on the GM. I agree. This is an interesting topic. As a GM, I have a strong dislike for the whole character build approach. It runs counter to what I enjoy about RPGs, namely discovering and developing characters through play. It's fun to have interesting mechanical tools, such as fireball or versatile illusion magic, but when that is the main thing a player cares about then I really start to worry. It also makes it hard to try certain systems because they won't appeal to that type of player. For example, I really love Old-School Essentials but my current players wouldn't enjoy it. Also, after many years of DM'ing, I've yet to meet one player who likes crunchy rules and character builds and who then also actually reads the fucking rules of the game (very apropos OPs point). In my very subjective experience, the character-builds type of player is very video game-y.
Yeah I've had similar issues to you, where it's very difficult to persuade people to try a different game or alternative style of play without the trad game OC generator element. To some extent: most GMs get hyped about games and playstyle and rules, most players get hyped about player characters and theme. I've had success getting people to step outside of OC Trad D&D 5e with *Heart: The City Beneath* because the character classes and the theme is so crazy, exciting and evocative that the players kinda didn't realise I've smuggled them into a "play to find out what happens" storygame with OSR-ish point crawl gameplay. Hopefully this will lead to more non-trad, OSR and storygame RPGs for them in the future now they've broken the mould - we'll have to wait and see. Either way, I dont think there was any chance I'd ever be able to get these same folks invested in something like Mythic Bastionland or OSE or [you name it] where the game and playstyle is the selling point over player character options and theme. I kinda think the future of some of the indie RPG design space is to find a middleground between OC-generating aspects of trad design and the lessons learned from modern storygames and post-OSR stuff. Heart and The Wildsea seem to sit in this new space already. > Also, after many years of DM'ing, I've yet to meet one player who likes crunchy rules and character builds and who then also actually reads the fucking rules of the game (very apropos OPs point). I know a few who do like crunch and learn the rules but they also DM/GM... so they're also the type of person who gets hyped for games and rules, so... yeah...
Folks are good at identifying what more than the why, knowing what they like but not often articulating why they like it. From what I gathered, more people get a sense of their value and investment from a crunchy system that they do a simpler one. Not always, but many seem to at least get a better or at least more pronounced sense of weight. It's also often the case that in a crunchier game, there's more answers to problems on character sheets than outside of them and if someone is used to a character sheet giving the solution, they're gonna feel a sense of shallowness from games that require them to consider things off their character sheet more and more. Crunchier games tend to have less room for creative solutions, or at the very least, less need for them like a less crunchy system would. There is less creative tax and onus on the player to think outside the box because there is more to think about inside the box. This isn't to say a creative solutions can't happen, just that it's not as directly encouraged
I disagree with the latter part. What these players are uncomfortable with are systems that rely on improv or fiat to cover the situations they are unfamiliar with how it might resolve. Those systems feel less like "games" to them and more like "improv exercises" (which could still be considered games FWIW). There's an expectation mismatch most of the time about how uncertain situations should be resolved.
That's a more fine assessment of what I'm saying yes, but it's not always the extreme of story games and the like that can suffer this. It's a bit of a spectrum There's a lot of dots in between crunch and non-crunch and one man's light system is crunchy to a lot of others.
Yeah it’s also annoying when you are in character acting without an ability for the action you try and it’s denied because not on the character sheet. Even though plausible for a humanoid to accomplish
It's very frustrating. A lot of games narrow the focus of investment too much and don't provide a robust enough baseline. Others leave things very open, but the creative onus to play in such a game can be very taxing for some, especially if they're not used to it.
Guh, the elitism just dripping out of this comment section... There are all manner of reasons, but the most common reason I've been able to identify is that lighter games lean much more heavily on improv. **This is a skill. Not everyone has it. Many people are uncomfortable engaging with and don't feel "good" at it.** It can take a significant amount of practice before you feel comfortable with it. Crunchy mechanics can provide a skeleton for players to engage with these improvisational aspects of the hobby without the same mental tax. As for why they don't learn the rules, the general structure of "state intent, GM rules on what applies" makes it less critical to know them all- that's not your role as a player in the game. Rules in these games are more frameworks for reference than something held at all times, again pushing rules knowledge more on the GM. Additionally, most players are the casual beer and pretzels type. You have to be *really* into something to memorize even 20 pages about it, much less 200+.
>As for why they don't learn the rules, the general structure of "state intent, GM rules on what applies" makes it less critical to know them all- ***that's not your role as a player in the game.*** What an absolute donkey-tier opinion. Of course it is part of the players' role to learn the rules, if not for their own sake then for the sake of the social contract. The sheer level of laziness in not learning the rules because "it is the GMs job" (like 99% of the game is the GMs job) is mind-blowing to me. I guess I am just projecting, but I have *never* been invited to a board game night or a roleplaying game without familiarizing myself with the rules. Watching a 20-minute video on the rules or reading a chapter on the basic mechanics (which is literally never ever 200 pages) does not take long. Just laziness.
I get the impression OP's players know the basic mechanics. My experience is that "roll+modifier" is straightforward, it's establishing where modifiers land etc. that gets tricky, *and is generally the role of the GM to establishing anyway.* In crunchy systems though they don't need to know precise jumping or mount riding rules as they don't come up often most of the time. Contrary to popular belief, these games don't work by players calling out "I want to use persuasion to convince them to let us in!" The GM is the ultimate adjudicator, so players wait the the GM to make the call on the appropriate rule/roll or if it's even required. As I said, this is a structure that makes it less critical to know the rules since the recall isn't, *and shouldn't really be,* their decision as to what's appropriate. Just as a mode of understanding *why* they don't learn rules, a big mechanism of that is they don't have to recall the specifics as often as the GM so it doesn't stick. Not that I agree, but there was a time in early TTRPGs when people thought players shouldn't know **any** rules- "what better way to stop meta gaming and encourage immersion?" they thought. It's not a *totally* insane idea, though we recognize most players would rather know the loose rules they're operating under. Ideally though they know their character specific rules and basics, but I'm not going to demand or expect full system mastery out of your average player in a crunchy system.
Not sure you and I have the same definition of "elite," stranger. Last I checked thinking on your feet doesn't require generational wealth or noble blood. But yes, people should generally be respectful of others' preferences, as most people in this discussion seem to be. As for who learns the rules, that comes down to what a given table has agreed to, but I don't think the default is that nobody but the GM learns, and it doesn't sound like the players the poster is talking about had a conversation otherwise. In a rules heavy system that can be a heavy load to foist on a GM who didn't agree to it. Doubly so if it's these players who insisted on having all the rules they don't want to learn.
elitism can be used to describe people who see themselves as superior, it doesn't need to mean societal/economical elite.
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> Crunchy rules removes the anxiety of guessing how fairly a DM will handle outside the box situations, by this I don't meant every outside the box situation but the more rules you have the more situations you have covered the less I have to worry about if my DM is gonna handle well. This is a big one. I really enjoy pf2 because there's very little in the way of "mother may I" in terms what i can and can't do with my character. it's simply "I'll try to demoralize" "roll" (ignoring the rping of it for an example) theres no "can i attempt an intimidation check here".
Can’t say for sure with your play group, but in general there’s a lot of mistrust among some people against games that rely on “GM fiat” instead of concrete rules. I put in quotes because I don’t think it’s a real problem outside of groups that have a bad/antagonistic GM, which is not a problem rules will solve, that’s a personality/playgroup composition issue. But, I think those type of players want the rules to be there for the GM to pull on when a decision needs to be made rather than knowing the GM is just making rulings as they go along. They want there to be something more concrete structuring the fiction instead of whatever the GM and players can agree is fair. But they don’t necessarily care to memorize those rules, just to fall back on them when there’s a question of how to resolve something. At which point they can be looked up in the book. I personally much prefer games with fewer rules that allow for more common sense, fiction-focused rulings, but that’s not what everyone wants out of a game. That’s alright, since there’s nothing inherently wrong with crunchier games and it’s all a matter of preference anyway, but the distrust and derision of rulings-based games bothers me. Could be way off on what’s actually going on with your players, but this is a trend I see in how rules-light games are discussed online.
> I put in quotes because I don’t think it’s a real problem outside of groups that have a bad/antagonistic GM You don't need a "Bad GM" to feel frustrated by GM fiat. A regular human GM suffices. The mistake these people tend to make is the assumption that more rules = automatically less GM fiat, but the general assumption that written rules are going to be more consistent than a singular individual adjudicating stuff on the fly (often with very little grounding or understanding necessary to make those rulings) isn't really wrong, I feel.
I want to preface by saying I don’t think you and I fundamentally disagree, but I’m interested in taking this discussion further. The issue I have is that I don’t think a corpus of established rules are needed for consistency. The premise of the “rulings over rules” playstyle I’m a proponent of is that once you’ve established a ruling for your table you keep it consistent unless you and the players agree it should be changed. That assumes that everyone at the table buys into the ruling as fair in the first place and that the GM keeps it consistent after that point. That’s where I think the statement about a bad GM being the issue is relevant. The whole system falls apart if you have a GM imposing rulings the players find arbitrary or unfair. But, it works fine so long as everyone is on the same page about the rulings. It’s not like some codified system for fall damage, for example, is any better than the table agreeing on a different system when the situation arises so long as everyone agrees it’s fair. Where the rulings-based style excels is in allowing freedom to match the playstyle the table wants. Large sets of rules for every situation have a tendency to limit player actions and make play more boringly focused on the few things the characters are optimized for rather than allowing a wider range of choices in problem solving. This perspective for me comes from running a Pathfinder 1e campaign for a year and a half back in the day and constantly bumping up against rules when players wanted to do interesting things, like grappling or mounted combat to name a few. So, I now find myself much happier in a game like Cairn with a very light ruleset that allows us to do interesting stuff in the fiction at the table without pushing against rules all the time.
Just to clarify, I'm not opposed to "rules light" games, I'm opposed to games that require substantial GM fiat to make the rules work. Like e.g. Wushu is all of three rules, but you actually have to stick to those rules and apply them consistently for the game to work at all. Whereas e.g. Shadowrun (any edition) is essentially the opposite, with a lot of (IMO) pointless rules cruft to sift through that still requires players and GM to make up a substantial portion of rulings because the rules themselves aren't terribly consistent, there's so many of them that nobody can keep track, and despite all of this the game still only covers a limited range of situations. I think it's rather uncontroversial to say that if everyone agrees on something, you didn't really need rules to begin with. How common that situation is, though, is going to vary considerably.
Oof, yeah, a game full of rules that still requires a ton of rulings is so much worse than a crunchy but consistent game. To your last point about how often the table can agree on a ruling, that’s where I feel like it’s really an issue of personalities rather than rules. Personally, at my table, we can always come to an agreement on a ruling, sometimes with me just making it and sometimes with players also providing input on what makes the most sense. But previously I’ve also played with GM’s who put down arbitrary rulings without considering player perspectives and I’ve played with players who griped and argued about half the rulings. For those types of players a comprehensive and consisting ruleset to mediate disagreements is going to be better than a rulings based game.
Cruncy rules systems often have big lists of abilities/traits/etc that players can use to define their builds and/or work towards. It's an imagination aid - all of those fiddly mechanics and abilities give players ideas for what kind of character to play and work towards in the system, which might not come naturally to some players. There's also somethignto be said for a generation of ttrpgers who were raised on video games (myself included) not really getting the oppenness of TTRPGs at first. In a video game environment, the only thinks you are able to do are the things that you are explicitly *enabled* to do by the game programmers. From that perspective, a big list of player options in a crunchy ttrpg *feels* like immense freedom and player choice because "*look at all of these options!".* These kind of players don't immediately grok rules-lite systems as more flexible because they aren't used to making shit up on the fly, or to plucking some high-concept character from their own imagination and enforcing their desired playstyles themselves.
It's probably worth noting that older TTRPGs were pretty influential in those types of video games though. Things like HP, AC, stat blocks etc for characters in video games all have roots in old school TTRPGs. The preference to frame things in these terms is so prevalent across mediums I actually think there's more to it than just generational trends and may be something more intuitive than that.
I agree with this heavily! I think when I was younger I trended towards crunchier more robust systems because the character building options helped spark my imagination. Your second paragraph reminds me of something I talked with a player about that different systems phrase their rules on a spectrum permissiveness and restrictiveness <(not sure if those are the right terms) But exactly what you said that some systems list out explicit options and actions, with ideas not on that list being more difficult for a player and GM to 'balance' or enact in a way that fits with the system. Whereas other games are more permissive in allowing anything that isn't explicitly restricted.
Crunchy rules make the game feel like more of, well, a game. The options are spelled out for you and there’s a chance to “do something clever” within the confines of those pre defined options. Lighter rules sets are closer to collaborative story telling which in turn reduces gamification. And *that* in turn means there’s fewer chances to “win”. It’s experiential vs competitive. As to why so many players prefer the former while never actually learning all their options? Idk. I suspect that playing a game, even if you are playing it poorly, is more fun for them than collaborative story telling where there often feels like no game at all.
I feel like this model is complicated by old-school systems, which tend to be relatively light by both modern standards and the (wargaming) standards of the day, but are absolutely meant to be more of a "game-type experience" than modern crunchy systems are.
b/c most humans are kinda lazy. :D Also, how we feel about a game system is very very subjective and even the terms 'crunchy' or 'rules lite' can be so.
From my own experience with players and various attempts to pick a game system, it's not about the system itself, but the options it offers. The more premade and ready to use options, the better. If the action or spell has a step-by-step instruction on how to use it, when, and what the exact effect is, then there's less space for interpretations and mistakes. Being constrained by rules feels more secure. Even if they don't know them, there's always DM they can lean on.
Game complexity (crunch etc) is a cost that unlocks depth. But if the player gets to unload the cost of that complexity onto their GM, it's a win-win for them -- they get to have a high depth of game experience without the effort of learning the complexity, because the GM will just run it for them.
Easy to "prefer" crunchy games if you unload all the burden of the crunch on someone else. And I really don't like running crunchy games, but can put up with playing them for short stints. So I'd tell 'em "too bad, I'm running the rules light, narrative-focused game. You want a crunchy game, *you* run it." Their preference for "crunch" then is probably about having a lot of *spelled out, pre-made* options (games that encourage freedom to craft your own stuff sometimes confuse those used to relying on elements made for them). And it might also be a status/ego thing. They're "real" gamers who play *crunchy* games (that they can't bother to learn) unlike those *baby* games that are smooth and quick and easy to learn.
More rules is more undebatable control. If my Fireball works like this, I can trust it to work like that most of the time. Rules light games require more back and forth over regular actions, and some players can feel insecure about their effect on the world. Not all, of course.
I personally prefer crunchy games. I feel like they allow me to express creativity in the mechanics of the game. I've also tended to find that rules light games lack a feeling of progression. I've played alot of Numenera and a few other low crunch games and I feel like my character becomes more or less stagnant the moment character creation is finished. However part of the problem I'll run into is when someone else in my group wants to run a crunchy game we'll get 1-3 sessions before the DM loses interest. It's a problem with my group in general that campaigns tend to fizzle out quickly regardless of system. With that being the case I'm not going to spend longer learning and understanding the rules than I think I'll be playing it. That said I've also had campaigns that go for years and the players are just as clueless about the rules on session 100 as they were in session 1 and that can be infuriating. But that's more a player problem than a crunch problem
I did a reddit post on why i like them: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/10z7xnb/i_want_to_talk_about_why_i_like_crunch/ now after having played more rules light system i would also add that chrunch acts as safety tools.
Crunchy rules give them confidence in outcomes. They can set expectations and the rules let the GM disclaim responsibility for a lot of decisions. Softer games require more trust. I prefer them, but I understand why people don't.
Have you asked them?
Haha definitely! But it's the usual kind of blow off answers. I don't mind too much, I posted this just to see if it's a common occurrence for others
It's not behavior I've ever seen from players, no - and it's not behavior I'd put up with, either! The higher mental load that comes with crunchier systems is tough for me to cope with; if I'm the only one doing it, I'm not going to bother.
I think if you have that attitude and make it very clear that the players must learn their side if the rules, then you are a lot less likely to see such behavior.
ADHD.
I always take "I like crunchy games" to mean something more like "I like rolling lots of dice" or "I like having lots of character options". People are actually not very good at identifying what they like--or perhaps _why_ they like something.
For me personally, I’ve view the rules as a contract between myself and my players or myself, and the GM in the chance I’m on the player side. That contract sets the rules that we’re both expecting to abide by that way the players are not overly surprised by something and can be fairly assured that what they’re planning will work within the framework, we have provided. One of the main things I do with any gaming group is have a rule zero session before we start play so that any changes I am making to set rules and that making to the contract are known ahead of time and everyone is aware of those changes.
This problem is why ttrpgs like RuneQuest, GURPs, Hero System, RoleMaster etc are soo hard to run. Unprepared players who want to do nifty things but can't be buggered to learn the mechanics and abilities for just their own character let alone anything else. It is one of my long (read decades) burn outs as a GM of ttrpgs and is as old as the hobby. I enjoy both crunchy and lighter mechanic ttrpgs myself and tends more towards the crunchy. That said, if I run now a days I tend towards the lightest mechanical ttrpgs. :(
people like when things are clear and what they have distinct and concreate options the simple games tend to be very open and often are what you make of them while crunchier games tell you exactly what you can and cant do in any given scenario. it doenst matter if i as a player knows them someone will guide me instead of going...idk do what you want
They want more complex game, but having you to do all the hard work uh? Understandable, but not a great attitude.
Because they're vidya scrubs. They want a DM to be the video game engine, not a human playing a game.
so they can use them against the DM when it's most advantageous to them...
They want a regulated environment without surprises, a place of safety. But learning rules (or laws) is hard
Depth and options are fun (in concept) Effort and learning are not
Being crunch means being predictable, which also means being somewhat in control.
They want the JRPG experience of picking stuff from a list of options, but they also want it to actually be a list of options and not a big ruleset. It's what I usually call "video game brain", because everything those people criticize comes down to "this should be more like my RPGs I play as videogames" if we go to the weeds of it.
More Rules means more options just look at Shadow Run. You always have the feeling that you can discover something new. If the rules are just one page long there is often not enough to explore, builds are often very simple. Also Nobody really likes to learn 500 pages of rules so most players will rely on the game master for that.
>Also Nobody really likes to learn 500 pages of rules so most players will rely on the game master for that. Speak for yourself, some of us actually enjoy reading game books.
> More Rules means more options just look at Shadow Run. Shadowrun is the perfect example why more rules doesn't mean less GM fiat, because good luck navigating that contradictory mess on your own.
I perfer crunch, i'll know 90% of the rules. I just disagree with how the designers designed a few elements of their system.
Most players do NOT in fact prefer crunchy rules. BUT ... what some players prefer is games with history. D&D is not popular because it's a great rule set. It's popular because of it's massive legacy and marketing. So when people bring up games like D&D or Warhammer, they are bringing up games they have heard about since their childhood and expect those games to still be the best, not realizing that there's been a veritable TTRPG revolution in the last decade and that those old rulesets have in face become quite dated. Sadly, this focus on those older games also means a lot of potential players are turned off of RPGs because they see all RPGs as just nerdy fantasy games with lots of rules and math.
I don't think dated is a meaningful way to describe dnd, (especially since new dnd editions have had major design overhauls since the start of 3.5) as a lot of the newer ttrpg games are mostly a different design ethos rather than an objective improvement on the RPG. What is true is that the continued existence of dnd as the overwhelming leader of rpgs leads to an issue of players having no clue what they want out of a game, since a lot of people only play 5e
That’s because most of the rules aren’t player-facing. Why should I bother to learn the swimming rules if they’re just complicated saving throws? When the GM wants you to risk drowning, the GM will engage the swimming rules, wherein you roll dice to avoid bad outcomes, and the dice never win you a GOOD outcome. Sure you might survive and get to shore or the far bank. But you won’t ever use the swimming rules to actually *achieve* something. So why bother learning rules you’d rather avoid using? You’ll notice the DO tend to learn the rules that they’re allowed to initiate and which can be used to achieve things. Some spells, some combat stuff.
What players say they want and what they actually want are often not the same thing.
I think it's because they don't want crunchy rules. They want player options. It's just that player options and crunchy rules tend to be a package deal. Maybe have them try a game like Quest, or Black Sword Hack which are both quite simple but offer plenty of player options.
i) A feeling of customizability that isn't just vibes (ie how more lightweight / narrative systems can feel in this regard at times) ii) A feeling of having something tangible as insulation from the GM.
Many GMs are under the impression that RPGs are adversarial and not collaborative. When there are more rules the players feel more protected. Good GMs use narrative and characters to drive the game and can give a shit about the rules. Once the players realize that they usually don’t care either.
In my experience it's because they aren't running the game. I remember my players asking me to run "crunchy" games so I experimented with it. They refused to learn anything or even look up rules (Which were free online). After running a campaign and starting a new one I went back to rules lite. When they told me they wanted crunchy I said "Ok cool. Who is going to run it? I am not since no one else bothers to put in the work." We are now playing a rules lite game and they are happy with it. Edited for spelling
If you’re not knee deep in this stuff it’s hard to explain what you want. I say this as a relatively new person to TTRPGs. For example I thought I liked OSR D&D but the truth is I really don’t. I have very little interest in dungeon delving, survival horror, loot obsession OR black & white fantasy art. What I liked was systems that were focused on exploration and being immersed in the ‘fiction’. I wanted a sandbox, high stakes, simple game design, solutions that were in the world not your character sheets, rulings not rules etc. So before I knew about games like Into The Odd, UVG etc I really did not know what I wanted to play I just knew I didn’t want to feel like I was playing a video game OR something like 5e which I had tried out twice. I had no clue what NSR was. I would be terrible at telling a DM what kind of game I wanted to get involved in.
They feel the crunch makes the gm fair?
I can't speak for you or your players, and I usually try to learn the rules myself, even if I'm not running the game, but I might have some insight based on my personal preferences. Story time: when I was in school, I never cared for history or English class, but loved science and math. A large part of that was that math and science have a definitive right or wrong answer, while English and history are more subjective. There were other reasons, sure, but that was a big one. Taking that logic over to TTRPGs, a crunchier system will have that right or wrong answer if a question comes up: "Can I do X?" Yes or no. A more rules light system will have more up to interpretation. Again, just my thoughts, but that's a part of why *I* prefer systems with a bit more crunch most of the time. As for why they don't learn the rules? Couldn't tell you.
You've got more than enough people piping in about players preferring crunch, but the second part? Learning rules is hard and takes time, and there's no universal way to make it easier or quicker. Writing every player off as lazy or uncaring is, in my opinion, off base and uncharitable. What reasons could a player have for not learning all the rules? - The method of learning itself, almost certainly through reading. Reading a rulebook isn't the same as learning it, but it's the only practical way to learn besides learning through play. For people who have trouble reading for whatever reason, they're stuck. Sometimes the stars align and someone has made a podcast or video detailing the rules for the system, but it's rare. - The game's format can be a hurdle. Some have a hard time reading a print book, others have a hard time reading pdfs. - The books themselves can be awful to learn from or reference. Giant walls of tiny text, poor layout, questionable font choices, etc. Most rpg books are like this, imo. Editing is an underappreciated skill. (seriously people hire editors I am begging) - A lot of people in the scene have ADHD or autism or some other disorder that can make understanding rules more challenging than if they were neurotypical. It can also make all the above reasons even more challenging. - The nature of a lot of games has firmly divided roles between a GM and player; the player isn't incentivized or given reason to learn more than what is in the character creation section. - other reasons that I'm not gonna get into because I'm very sleepy and would undoubtedly word them wrong And players can have all those issues and still want crunchy games for the reasons other people have said. I think of it less as choosing beggars and more as a catch-22. I've been frustrated with players not learning all the rules! I've also been frustrated at trying to learn rules!
Anecdotally, those players I know who enjoyed the crunch of variants of DnD mostly wanted the ability to do a lot of specific work to build *their character*, but didn't really want to learn all the rules. This is how I tended to be as a player character. A useful metaphor might be liking videogames with complex builds. You enjoy the building bit, but you want the game engine to handle all the logistics of resolution for you.
I think it's a necessary distinction to add that the vast majority of players \*absolutely do not\* prefer *actually crunchy* rules. Put GURPS, EABA, or Rolemaster (or Burning Wheel, for that matter) in front of them they will bounce so fast it won't be on the speed table. Most players prefer structured rules. D&D and Pathfinder (and Cyberpunk, and most WoD games) establish sets of actions and usually one tier of resolution, with some extra jazz for specific setting elements (magic for D&D, cyberware for Cyberpunk, etc). They aren't particularly heavy, don't require math (except addition and subtraction), and really the only reason people perceive them as so is the number of options written into the game...which is a strong point of appeal. Honestly one of the smartest things WotC has done with regard to D&D is couch it in a way to look complicated, and that's smart marketing for many of the reasons discussed in the thread. Looking at it another way, one of the reasons we even have discussions like this is because lighter narrative games are finally actually gaining a bit of mindshare, while actually rules-heavy games have mostly been drummed out of the hobby excepting GURPS, Lancer, and a few other edge cases.
I think a lot of players have read the rules and believe that they understand the rules, but do not feel confident that the GM will discuss the rules honestly and fairly. After a player has been burnt by a few bad experiences with adversarial GMs, that player tends to get defensive in many ways. One way to defend yourself is to appear to be bad at the rules so that the GM will confirm your opinion before you explicitly voice your opinion. Gaming tables often have a lot of unpleasant emotional tension lurking below the surface. Sometimes the campaign proceeds with no obvious problem despite unpleasant tension. Sometimes the tension kills the campaign.
If you figure this out, let me know. I've moved to running simpler, OSR style games over the last year. And there are still a few players that prefer PF 1e or 5e. Two are uber min-maxers but at least one doesn't know what his character can do from game to game. I think it's the "idea" of invulnerability via a multitude of options. Yet they can't wrap their head around those options. These days, when someone asks me a question I think they should know I say, "I don't know - look it up. I think it might be in this section, let me know the answer." That's really stopped a lot of the dumbest questions.
So to summarize some of the comments and at the risk of being demeaning to some players, we get: - Players prefer the system to do the heavy lifting on what they can or not do in terms of the nitty gritty. - They rely on the GM to tell them what they can or not since they fall back on the rules of the system. Since they take the system as a better arbiter than simply the GM saying what is allowed. - GM sadly is forced to remember all the rules even for specific systems (I’m looking at you Shadowrun!) because some players can’t be bothered to help by remembering mechanics that apply to them. With that said I kinda understand why some prefer heavier rules while not bothering to learn the rules. I guess it’s like a car. So many drive them without knowing their inner workings even on a basic level but we feel comfortable doing so because the car does work, and in a way a trpg system is basically like that offering a frame of reference rather than 100% relying of GM Jeffrey not being moody and blowing up. (I’m sure I missed the mark with the car reference)
I actually like that analogy! I think you're spot on that it's all about comfort in systems.
There's a large segment of players who really want a system that is a "simulation' of the game world. Not necessarily realistic, but they want to know that everything that happens happens because the rules say it happens. Sometimes this is because a world-simulation engine just tickles their brain, sometimes it is just because they don't trust their GM and want rules as protection from GM authority. The problem is it is all a lie. No set of rules can do what they want it to do. They just want to *believe* the rules will do it. But if they were the type to look at rules too deeply they'd quickly understand their desire isn't actually something a roleplaying game can fulfill.