RPG Minimalism

[Ancient History]

Early RPGs evolved from war games, and war games evolved from strategy games. When I say "evolved," I mean it in almost the Darwinian sense: only the fittest survived - what fit the moods of the gamers at the time, that is. Early games had relatively few rules, and very limited set areas of play - people did not see it as particularly confining at the time until someone wanted to do something else - which is when they would add a new rule, or create a new situation, etc.

So how do people feel about minimalist systems? Ones that deliberately attempt to shrink the number of factors that a player has to keep track of, to streamline the system so that there are fewer unique rules.

[DSMatticus]

Being able to do X with less work is always a good thing, and in terms of RPG's work usually means "looking stuff up," "waiting while someone else looks something up," or "doing math." On the flip side, you are trying to maintain a set of rules that adequately govern some sort of play experience. So fewer rules to do the same things is a bit of a no-brainer, but fewer rules to do less things is either better, worse, or who cares depending on what things you're giving up.

By example, After Sundown decided it didn't want to distinguish between the skill used to shoot things and the skill used to hit things. Given the types of play After Sundown is intended for, that works fairly well. 4e, on the other hand, decided it didn't really want to distinguish between first-level cave-hopping adventurers and thirtieth-level planar-travelling superheroes. And that was a joke.

[fectin]

"It depends" is about the best answer you're going to get.

There's certainly no shortage of reasons to dislike FATAL, but one of the reasons was stupidly complex systems. Overcomplexity kills fun faster than just about anything. On this end of the spectrum, I love me some Danger Patrol.

On the other hand, making a system to simplistic for the stories you want to tell is nearly as bad. It feels like magical tea party playtime, often combined with a healthy dose of actual rollplaying ("I roll my wisdom to not say something stupid!"), which I find both confusing and irritating. I.e., I like the idea of Wushu, but hate it in practice.

My personal favorite has to be D&D 3.5 (or 3.x), which I keep coming back to. It's not perfect (far, far from it), but it has great crunch without constraining your fluff, and is really fairly middle of the road in detail.

[Blasted]

I'm rather enjoying SotC.
There's a higher amount of imaginative effort on part of the players and the MC needs to have a good grasp of the rules and how her rulings will interact with them.

I'm not sure that the evolution of the RPG market has been anything like darwinian. 4E is still at least #2.

[Psychic Robot]

So how do people feel about minimalist systems? Ones that deliberately attempt to shrink the number of factors that a player has to keep track of, to streamline the system so that there are fewer unique rules.

I like minimalist but not too minimalist

keep it simple but interesting

[Maj]

I prefer minimalist because there's more time spent actually gaming. As much as I like D&D, one of my biggest gripes is the time spent looking stuff up, verifying rules, and explaining concepts to new players.

Since most of the games we run are with people new to gaming, that's a LOT of wasted time. One thing Ess is known for are his stories - they're quite good - and it's pretty common to have the players get exasperated with the technical part and just want to get on with the plot.

[Daztur]

With RPG rules, the ones that really get under my skin is the ones that obviously came from the creator thinking about "what would be cool" or "what would make sense" rather than "what actually works in the goddam game." For all of its (many) faults, one thing I love about 1ed D&D is that a lot of the rules evolved in a piecemeal fashion as a result of people actually playing the game. In some other games, there's a whole pile of rules which I can't imagine anyone in their right mind actually using (like the distinction between even and uneven cobblestones and their different DCs for balance checks or somesuch. I can't believe that anyone ever used those, same goes for a lot of high level powers in a lot of games (3.0ed was never really playtested into the double-digit levels and it shows, high level powers in White Wolf games are even worse).

In general these sort of dumbass rules crop up a lot more often in games with complicated or very situational rules.

[K]

RPG rules have to be deceptively simple.

A good example is chess. It takes four minutes to explain, and it opens up decades of play.

Now, RPGs have to be more interesting than chess, but the lesson is the same.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You also need to keep in mind that people's threshold and taste for complexity goes up as they like/get more familiar with the game. While Chess and Checkers can be explained in four minutes there are still thousands of Chess books out there while no similar publication volume exists for Checkers. World of Warcraft has entire wikis detailing every game mechanic down to minute edge-case RNGs but my grandma can still play it.

Having a rule-set where you can throw together some totally system-ignorant friends and get playing in 30 minutes is a huge advantage but so is a system where if fans enjoy the system and are hungry for more there's playspace for them to explore. World of Warcraft is huge because of the former but longer-lasting than a typical fad because of the latter. While such a zen has been achieved for most traditional games and for video games I don't know if such a balance can be attained for TTRPGs. If it does we'll be leaning a lot more on low entry barrier geegaw like the Character Builder, 3D Printing, and Online Tabletop.

[Ancient History]

I've been playing with the idea for an expandable system - you start out with a very sparse "core" system, with optional but logical expansions. Like, you could begin with only 3 attributes - but an expansion would branch off dependent attributes from those.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You can't just add on expansion options to a game and hope for it to work, especially if the game starts out simple. In fact the simpler the game is the more an expansion option will completely derail gameplay.

Imagine if Chess introduced a rule where Bishops were allowed to move one square to the left or right once per game. It's a tiny change but one that would completely change everything and make the metagame almost unrecognizable.

[RobbyPants]

Warhammer Quest did that. You had a 30 or so page rule book to play a GM-less cooperative game, and there was a 90 or so page book for expanded rules and introducing a GM.

Couldn't you create a simple game that handled "skills" with ability checks, gave out feats prepackaged at various levels for each class, and didn't allow AoOs, and one version that had skills, selectable feats, and AoOs?

[Wesley Street]

The core game needs to be the complete game. Expansion rules eliminate the need to have the GM adjudicate peripheral results.

Example: core combat rule states a PC takes 20 points of damage when hit by an arrow. Expansion rule states that when a PC is hit by an arrow he takes 20 points of damage, which body part was hit is determined by method ABC, and set PC penalties are then determined by method XYZ.

[Wrathzog]

You can't just add on expansion options to a game and hope for it to work, especially if the game starts out simple. In fact the simpler the game is the more an expansion option will completely derail gameplay.

Imagine if Chess introduced a rule where Bishops were allowed to move one square to the left or right once per game. It's a tiny change but one that would completely change everything and make the metagame almost unrecognizable.

That's kind of the point, though. When you add new features to a game, it would be insane to think that nothing would change.

And you're exaggerating the impact of bishop shifting would have on Chess. I'll admit that end-games would be more exciting... but that's about it. The fundamentals necessary to play Chess well will not change between Chess 1.0 and Chess 1.1.

[hogarth]

Game rules are basically the laws of physics for your game (among other things). So minimalist rules are great for fast & loose sorts of games, like Toon, where bending the laws of physics is tolerated or even recommended.

If you're trying to simulate a more rigid genre of fiction (e.g. superheroes or a particular sci-fi/fantasy book series) however, you need enough rules to encourage you to along those lines.

[tzor]

While I never played a lot of it, I was definitely impressed with the old "Time Lords" game system. Not only was the rules damn simple, but the characters were simple. No variations from racial templates save for a few skill categories that adjusted things on occasion. Actions were boiled down to the skill level vs the difficulty and from that difference you had to roll two d6 and get the difference from those dice and if the dice's difference exceeded the difference between difficulty - skill then you succeed.

[TheFlatline]

Isn't that essentially rolling a D6 where the pips go from 0-5?

"subtract your skill from the difficulty. Roll a D6. If your result is higher than the target number you succeed."

Though subtraction isn't as elegant as addition. So you roll a D6 and add your skill and try to beat the difficulty. That's easier.

Oh hey, we just made D20!

[Wrathzog]

It's very different from rolling 1d6. Because you're rolling multiple dice, you end up with a curve in your distribution. It has a mode of 1 and an average of 2 (I think?).
It's actually kind of interesting...

[Grek]

Its also annoying to play in practice and fucks up if your skill is greater than the difficulty of what you're attempting.

[Lago PARANOIA]

And you're exaggerating the impact of bishop shifting would have on Chess. I'll admit that end-games would be more exciting... but that's about it. The fundamentals necessary to play Chess well will not change between Chess 1.0 and Chess 1.1.

Experienced players would certainly give a care in the middle game because a persistent problem is the 'wrong' sort of bishop being trapped being their pawns and/or being unable to support an attack or their pieces. It wouldn't change play experience seriously for amateurs (i.e. people who can be tricked by a Scholar's Mate feint) and the opening.

I'm sure that you can draw analogies to D&D on your own.

Warhammer Quest did that. You had a 30 or so page rule book to play a GM-less cooperative game, and there was a 90 or so page book for expanded rules and introducing a GM.

Couldn't you create a simple game that handled "skills" with ability checks, gave out feats prepackaged at various levels for each class, and didn't allow AoOs, and one version that had skills, selectable feats, and AoOs?

Even if you could get this sort of system to work, which I doubt, you've still changed the metagame to the point of completely derailing gameplay. The kind of change you propose is not even like a pre-banlist YGO player competing against a March 2011 Banlist YGO person; it's way beyond that. It's more like a 4.5E D&D player playing alongside a 1995 2nd Edition D&D guy.

[Wrathzog]

Experienced players would certainly give a care in the middle game because a persistent problem is the 'wrong' sort of bishop being trapped being their pawns and/or being unable to support an attack or their pieces. It wouldn't change play experience seriously for amateurs (i.e. people who can be tricked by a Scholar's Mate feint) and the opening.

If the bishops could shift more than once, I'd agree with you. But if you give up your bishop shift early in the game, you better be using it to pick up a significant advantage or you're wasting it for later in the game when that shift becomes the difference between check and check mate.

you've still changed the metagame to the point of completely derailing gameplay

And that's okay. That's the entire point of having a "Simple" version of a game and the "Advanced" version. Gameplay SHOULD be different. I don't see why you think that this is such a bad thing.

[Lago PARANOIA]

1) I don't want to derail the discussion too much because I think Chess is a shit game and way overhyped, but again that's a problem with amateurs and the opening. A lot (I'd say the vast majority) of classic and expert games could not have gone the way they did with that little rule which is pretty much the definition of gameplay derailment. Comparisons can be drawn with castling. It's a minor rule subject to a lot of restrictions, but it hugely impacts gameplay. Imagine if you had a revision which allowed you to castle through or in check along with being able to do so after moving the pieces, as long as they were in the right spots.

2) The point is that if the gameplay derailment is strong enough it creates a completely different game. 3rd Edition D&D with Oriental Adventures is still essentially the same game, but Warhammer Quest's rules expansions are not. The new game experience may or may not be overall superior to the original but IMO fracturing the fanbase is a lot more common than attracting new people and keeping the same ones. And if you change the play experience enough (going from Bejewelled to Puzzle Quest) you don't even have a standard for saying which game is 'better' than the other. You may as well just release a different game altogether.

[Ancient History]

Chess is a good example because not only is it relatively simple (in general rules) and has it been extensively studied, but because it also has a huge number of variants - "fairy chess" and the like - which precisely address how new rules can impact the game.

[shadzar]

the best games, BEST being ones that will last longest, are the ones with the fewest amount of rules to learn.

a problem with MANY RPGs is the rules bloat on just the game itself. the more you have to fiddle with all the time, the les people will want to fiddle with other things and get trapped in fiddling with these parts.

BD&D was very good, and still is, because you can play and have fun with the RPG and not have so much to fiddle with or worry about. HeroQuest boardgame is a better RPG, yes it is a boardgame, than current TTRPGs because you can get in, have fun, and get out a LOT quicker.

the less time it takes to get ready to play, the more time you have TO play.

[OgreBattle]

Chess is a good example because not only is it relatively simple (in general rules) and has it been extensively studied, but because it also has a huge number of variants - "fairy chess" and the like - which precisely address how new rules can impact the game.

You can also see different culture's take on Chess, some with more top-down design than others. Look at Chinese/Elephant Chess, there's a lot of gameplay elements determined by "well it fits the setting"

The general has a camp he cannot leave, he has bodyguards who also stay in the camp. That is your base of operations.

There is a river in the middle of the board, it is the Han/Chu border, you are playing as the Han and Chu armies. Your elephants cannot cross the river because the logistics are too difficult to project them beyond your kingdom's borders.

Your footmen can only advance straight, until they cross the river then they become much more flexible. This encourages offensive play, and counters the defensive characteristics of elephants. Whoever takes the offensive has an advantage with his massed infantrymen. This is an abstraction of the idea that "I have covered more ground and gained territorial advantage, now I can strike from many places while my foe is pressed into a corner"

You have cannons. Due to the logistics and set up time of ball flinging cannons, they can only be used if manned or covered by another unit. Gameplay wise this also means the cannon starts off very strong in the early game (many intervening units to fire it) but in the late game it decreases in power.

The cavalryman is the opposite. His movement can be blocked by adjacent units, but in the late game he becomes more powerful as there are few units around to block him.

So the cannon excels at eliminating massed units, while the cavalryman excells when given a lot of open terrain.

There is also a final extra rule, that if an enemy general is forced into a position where he has clear vertical line of sight to yours, you win. You have forced his movement, and his army and bodyguards are distracted.
This final factor represents the kind of super cunning, "Damn you Zhuge Liang!!" bullshit complicated, or "and a bunch of assassins stabbed him at night" plans. As abstracted upon a chess board.

Put this all together and you have chess where there is a castle that the enemy commander sits in with his bodyguards plotting against one another (and preparing assassins), there are cannons to pound at enemy formations, there is an advantage to be seized in pushing your enemy to the defensive, and on the wide open plains cavalrymen begin to shine.