Do you prefer rules light/narrative RPGs or crunchy/simulationist? Why?

When I was in high school I liked detailed simulation, but now (in my mid-20s) I really prefer simplified rules and a focus on narrative and role play. At this point, all the crunching makes my mind wander.

>They should avoid excessive legalese so that readers must think in terms of the author's intentions rather than how they can twist a poorly-written sentence.
I agree with everything you said but this.

It just doesn't fucking work. You should assume that, while your players can read, that they are also completely retarded when it comes to interpretation. A "poorly-written sentence" shouldn't exist; it should be patched out. When it comes to hard mechanics, you should leave as absolutely little to interpretation as possible.

Now fluff? You can just eat that plain, in my opinion.

Rules-lite, though I'll play either. I'm not big on crunchy games generally because bigger combats stop feeling like a roleplaying game and make it feel like I'm playing shit Necromunda.

Wouldn't 4e fit?

It's much more concisely written than its immediate brothers.

Crunchy simulation, with a heavy focus on the narrative during actual gameplay. Because fuck you, I can have both chocolate and peanut butter on my cake and eat it, too.

Light. Every game we play there's always one or two characters that come out as being "the best", so rules light systems make the difference between the best and the worst that much smaller.

One of the #1 ways you can tell no one here actually plays RPGs is the amount of time we spend arguing about systems. It's like debating which pasta shape is best. Even ignoring that the "right answer" depends entirely on your personal taste and your needs for the dish, it doesn't matter 1/10 as much as what you're topping it with.
>mfw Veeky Forums seriously argue about pasta shapes
If you think Veeky Forums is bad you clearly don't use the other boards.

Fuck you, now I want cake but I can't afford to buy one.

Hey fuck you man hollow star-shaped pasta is the best and cooks evenly with minimal effort, meaning I can eat it faster.

But seriously you're probably not too far off base. Shitposting about systems when you can't game is fun and all, but it's dumb if you're doing it when you COULD be gaming.

You obviously don't love pasta enough.

Then again, neither does Veeky Forums if they think there's a "best" shape, instead of the shape most fitting for the meal.

Of course if there was a 3.PF pasta, it would be like all uneven with pockets full of flour that we can agree is an acquired taste at best.

I heat ya, I want cigarettes and booze but can't afford either.

This is a false dichotomy. Games heavy on crunch can be focused on narrative, and simulationist games can be pretty light. Of course, games can be neither very good at either and still be bogged down in crunch, or they can be pretty good at things with a simple system.

That said, I tend towards the narrative, but like just a little more crunch than what usually constitutes "rules light" while definitely avoiding the crunchier systems.

I'm definitely more oriented to good narratives over super-dense game mechanics, but too often rules-lite translates to making half of the game up as you go. Ideally the game gives you enough rules to understand what your characters are and aren't capable of, and what your character in particular is and isn't good at, along with grounded principles or how the world around them operates. At that point I don't need any more rules, but I need at least that.

I do enjoy crunchy games, but they require a very specific sort of group to actually be fun in practice. The worst is when the group picks a crunchy game, so you go and learn the rules, and then they start playing and they very clearly did not learn the rules and are just playing it like whatever game they already know (usually D&D), and that works for most games, but when you're adjusting the TN for checks and we're playing Shadow of the Demon Lord I know the GM didn't read the rules, and it makes me question every call they make there after.

For me what bothers me is how "hollow" it feels. People with literally no roleplaying experience latch onto a system they think sounds good and religiously defend it in the face of any criticism, even things most actual players admit are an issue. A game they've never played, probably never will play, and may very well realize they don't enjoy if they got to play it
>I agree with you but still can't resist the urge to make cheap jabs a system I don't like
Fuck off, you're part of the problem

>Fuck off, you're part of the problem

What problem? That people shitpost on Veeky Forums?

>wheredoyouthinkweare.jpeg

Simplified crunchy with a focus on narrative, such as G U R P S

>wheredoyouthinkweare.jpeg
A board that used to be able to discuss things once in awhile before people decided it was SUPPOSED to be terrible

> People with literally no roleplaying experience latch onto a system they think sounds good and religiously defend it in the face of any criticism, even things most actual players admit are an issue.
That's true of literally everything, though. People defend shit they know nothing about because they think they know something about it and want to feel right and/or validated.

>A board that used to be able to discuss things once in awhile...

He says after
>One of the #1 ways you can tell no one here actually plays RPGs is the amount of time we spend arguing about systems.

I mean, you can't really do both, you know? You can't say if you argue about systems you are obviously a game-less sperg BUT how dare you insult a game you dislike, we can't discuss anything on Veeky Forums anymore!

That's just not kosher.

(In case you are not the same person, carry on I guess)

So Mutants and Masterminds?

Crunchy/narrative.
But it has to be a bad system.

I like playing with a light and narrative feeling game, but I also like having the more realistic outcomes of a crunchy system. So I run some complex rules through an automated spreadsheet. That way, the main focus of how I run the game is the narrative, but I have access to realistic results if I want.

Yes, but the difference is that people THINK they understand, say, economics. They KNOW they've never played an RPG before
>Endless, repetitive shitposting about systems has damaged the board
>Continuing to shitpost about systems continues to damage the board
I fail to see the contradiction. Are you really so desperate to cling to your easy target? Why not go on Youtube and whine about Justin Bieber in the comments sections of Queen videos? You'll get way more acceptance and validation there.

This.

Shitty troll threads that are about nothing but triggering D&D haters/fanboys and fishing for edition war shit damages the board. Actually discussing systems (which is what this thread attempted to do, as far as I can see) doesn't.

You don't care about them? Alright, stay out then, play the games you like, contribute to the topics you like. But saying that this particular discussion is just sperging, and then claiming that discussion is hurting?

I'm not the problem here.

>Shitty troll threads that are about nothing but triggering D&D haters/fanboys and fishing for edition war shit damages the board
I couldn't agree more. Here's a great example:
>Of course if there was a 3.PF pasta, it would be like all uneven with pockets full of flour that we can agree is an acquired taste at best.

I'd like to note that that's not a thread, and the only one who got triggered was you.

But w/e, I'm done pointlessly shitting this place up by replying to you. Cheers!

Light simulationist.
A heavy-ruled system often can prevent things you may logically be able to do in-game or irl.

>I might as well play a video game or boardgame
I will never understand the elitism some RPG players have against video games, board games, and war games.

I like me some crunch.

Games like Burning Wheel, Eclipse Phase, and L5R have good crunch that support the fluff. Like a candy bar with marshmallow and peanuts.

Ditto. I used to like crunchy systems, but as I grow older I dislike handling complex rules more and more. I want to get just to the story not mess with tons of busywork.

user doesn't want concisely written, he said he wanted to avoid legalese

Ahahahahahaha
Ha
Hahahahaha

Hahaha

The longer the campaign, the heavier the game. I.E. I'd play Legends of the Wulin for a long campaign, Feng Shui for a short campaign, and a napkin RPG for a one-shot.

There are some exceptions, such as games with minimal crunch that are still good enough to run long campaigns with, and once people know the rules of a system well enough you can run fairly crunch-heavy one-shots.

Why does Captcha think coffee is tea?

Depends what I'm in the mood for

This guy is on point desu

Not the guy you quoted, but what's funny? It's easy to run GURPS in a streamlined and narrative-style. It's how I'm running my current space western "NOT-Bebop" game.

I tend to dislike rules-lite, if only because I find them harder to play/GM well. Less "hard" options makes inventive characters and creative decisions feel too easily taken for granted, I guess? They're really there to encourage RP, but I feel like it makes the depth of game options suffer.

I don't like simulation-level complexity, either, but I lean towards crunch regardless. When you have more complex systems and tons of options, making unique/strong characters or making creative decisions within the game parameters feels more rewarding. Roleplay, I think, needs no crunchy rules, but slots neatly into just about any game regardless of nuance.

I also find it easier to subtract stuff from a more complex game for ease of use than it is to build up a fairly naked game.

I prefer a good compromise that lets me improvise and doesn't sperg on irrelevant details but also doesn't leave me bare butt nacked when the players get all feisty and shit.
Yes I'm a forever GM.

Narrative focus but still more balanced than the extremely narrativist systems. I also don't like huge amounts of meta that usually accompany those. A BIT of non-intrusive gamist and sim mechanics don't hurt and may be source of some additional fun, but when they start to either slow down the story, ruin it's climax by dry resolutions or, even worse, grind against the story logic, it's a nope.

Oh, and I hate reading through crunch chapters of the rulebooks, so additional point for light ones.

And I still prefer sim than gamist, because sim is still about telling the story, though , different kind of story and with different means. While gamism is just about beating arbitrary obstacles through game mechanics which is usually boring for me. OK as a minor addition with low complication level, but if it get's worse it turns into yawnfest and "oh, it is my turn now?"

It's not elitism, many people who say that enjoy those other kinds of games It is more of an aknowledgement of fact that they are separate mediums taht don't mix well.

I like boardgames.

But... I also like skateboarding. And reading books. But reading book WHILE riding a skateboard is stupid.
So is playing extremely complicated boardgame and a story-game at the same time.

I prefer a bit of crunch when getting new people into roll play. It turns out that alot of people arnt abstract thinkers so giving them something concrete like dice roll mechanics is a wise move.

For myself I like rules light. Blackbird Pie is a great game for this, letting you play any type of character and keeping power levels balanced.

>i cherrypick a definition of RPGing that fits my tastes
you, sir, are an asshat

>simulationist games can be pretty light.
examples?

>simulationism
>like a boardgame
>what is gamism?
learn the basics, pls

>So I guess less D&D 3rd or SR 5th, more ACKs or RC.

So basically, games that no one fucking plays.

I like my games rules-lite, but not necessarily narrativist. I just don't want to have to memorize so many goddamn rules.

Rules medium is okay, too.

Yup.

>tfw RPG hipster
>tfw no scarf or wide-rimmed glasses

>Do you prefer rules light/narrative RPGs or crunchy/simulationist?

You act like those are synonyms. They are not. Whether a game is rules-light or rules-heavy has nothing to do with whether it's narrativist, simulationist or gamist.

Fuck, pure freeform where the only rule is "DM decides" can be simulationist if the DM simply makes his decisions based on what would happen in real life.

Okay, since there's some confusion in this thread let's go over the basics again.

A game is:
>Simulationist
if it's mainly concerned with "what would really happen (if the game situation was real)"
>Gamist
if it's mainly concerned with what would make it mechanically balanced and interesting ("boardgamey, videogamey")
>Narrativist
if it's mainly concerned with what would make for a cool story

These three are not exclusive, and almost every game that exists is some mixture of the three.

These three labels exist to describe the design goals of the system. They have no connection to whether a game is rules-light or rules-heavy. The terms for describing that are
>rules-light
>rules-heavy

Rules light != narrative

>2016
>still taking GNS theory seriously

You're free to take issue with any part of the theory you want, except for the definitions.

They've become common parlance in our hobby. No need to shit on someone trying to explain what the OP meant by their words.

The person who came up with it disagrees with your definitions.
>darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/threefold/faq_v1.html
Using the terms is barely more functional than just describing the thing you're discussing and the person who came up with it is a twat.

I prefer a little of both. Too much of one or the other makes things annoying.

If I absolutely had to pick an extreme though? Crunchy rules heavy. It's easier to add narrative to a rules-heavy system than to homebrew good mechanics for a narrative system.

Neither direction is inherently better. A system should be as complex as it needs to be. The most important thing in game design is UNITY. All subsystems should run roughly analogously to one another, or as closely as possible while still simulating the things that you need them too.

Rules lite is easy to unify. The fewer the rules In the rules lite direction, there's such a thing as TOO lite. If there's so few guiding rules that the GM might as well not be even using them then you might as well not even be using them(see: Big Motherfucking Crab Truckers).

Everyone Is John is a good example of this in action. It's just as complex as it needs to be, and gives simple rules for adjudicating the actions and situations the players will encounter.

The danger with a simulationist system is that it can become too bloated. This is the real problem with F.A.T.A.L.; there's no unifying mehanic, so you need to look up everything.

Compare FATAL to Pathfinder or GURPS. Even if you don't like these systems, you have to admit that they're well designed and streamlined. If you're not sure how to do something, it's easy to adjudicate because you can infer what should happen based off other rules in the system.

Rules light. I don't play RPGs to simulate, I play to go on adventures.

Descriptive elements of gameplay with some crunchier, para-RPS combat sounds ideal.

Rules lite. Otherwise my groups get bogged down in combat really hard.

It depends on what kind of campaign I wanna run. I go with both very often

Rules light. Or just turn up the rule of cool and handwaving during pathfinder.

I'd previously only played/GM-ed pathfinder, and I think that while GM-ing pathfinder, my pc's really appreciated it when we just skipped a bunch of the hyper-detailed rules and played a rules light version of it. That campaign came to a close once we found out about dungeon world, which seemed to be the RPG we were looking for.

I'm currently a PC in a pathfinder game that is pretty crunchy, and its so easy to stop giving a shit when you miss, or have to take something out of your backpack, and are waiting another 15-20 min while the rogue is calculating damage or that inexperienced player is firing a cross bow bolt at something.

I think pathfinder CAN be a great system if you have a great GM and experienced players. But lets be honest, there are always new players coming and going in life. And under these circumstances PF (and probably other crunchy d20 games) cater to a sluggish, video game-like experience, except even less than that, because you get taken out of the fiction every 20 seconds to look up a rule or calculate some value.

Hand-waving narrative games do have a place in tabletop gaming.

first of all, i don't see the difference to that other user here. secondly, we don't give a fuck. the user you are responding to has been given a fairly accurate portrayal of how the terms are used these days.

whatever dnd is.

I'm rules heavy, but like to play narrative. Rules are for GM to handle situations and to avoid arguments. I like to have rules which make difference between .22 LR and .44 Mag and grandma and army sergeant using those weapons. When there is difference between persons and their skills on rule level it is easier to guide and play their actions to avoid impossible things. So when there are rules for shooting and every aspect around it people (in my groups) tend to play more narrative than epic hero style. In rules light/vague people tent to try their luck in desperate situations. Also as a GM it's easier to keep track how people play their characters.

So gaming style and rules aren't tied together. I've seen rules light groups throw more dice than in our rules heavy group. Also in rules light group I have seen more hassling and less immersion than in rules heavy group. Basically more rules has ment to my groups more work to find loopholes in them and thus less time is spent discussing what can be done and what can't.

We have played mostly GURPS, which is thought to be rules heavy, but because you can create your character, not just trow dice randomly, people tend to spend more time look rules which apply their character. Mostly we played Cthulhu and Cyberpunk settings. In Cthulhu with Gurps rules characters felt different not just generic Ancient One feast, like with BRP's rules.

I had hear so much good about myBrother in Law's GMing skills and wanted to be in his game for ages. Finally when he and my sister accepted the challenge and we played a Cthulhu game together it was a disaster. Their style was very slow in real time action. Music, candle light check, but narrative was slow, monotonous and rules were followed strictly. Even though there was no much dice throwing, failure was failure and basically that ended a gaming session. Every thing was resolved thoroughly.

I prefer simulationism from the standpoint of someone who likes the game to actually be a game and not just a step away from freeform, but I usually end up playing rules light because I can't for the life of me actually remember the rules.

I've met a terrible fate.

gamist with simulationist elements

Playing with retards does, in fact, have a negative influence on the amount of fun you have. Being unable to remember what your own character does between every combat is pretty horrible.

Simulationist with some crunch, but a more narrative demeanor in play. Narrative games, for some reason, actually draw me out of the narrative.

Rules light/narrative I suppose, mostly because I feel like I'm more likely to find GM's and players who don't hopelessly mangle their own mechanics. I'd prefer a simple system run well than an absolutely amazing yet complicated system that becomes a terrible slog because the GM didn't read the book.

I like rules-heavy stuff but nobody I play with can handle them or actually read anything ever.

If a human is running it, I prefer narrative.

I say this as someone who fucking loves crunch and will devote hours to it.

Crunch just isn't worth it in tabletop, it takes too long.

Now, if you get a computer to administer it, I can take a nigh infinite amount of crunch and demand more of it.

Gotta be crunchy.

When it's rules light, I find more often than not that GMs let their bad habits get in the way, either because they're letting the players get away with too much, or they're introducing too much because they feel adversarial towards the player.

So long as crunch binds everyone, it limits the ability of bad GMs to get out of whack.

(This is coming from someone who likes to GM and whose biggest pet peeve is fucking awful GMs)

Rules light/Narrativist, easily.

A crunchy simulationist game will still be shit with a shit group, but any game will be pretty good with a good group, so why pick the one that takes more prep and more dicerolling?

If I was in it for the mechanical challenge, I would play computergames like a normal person, role-playing games only strength is the actual role-playing.

Only retards and children play role-playing games to win or to "beat the system".

If you like to discuss balance and builds in role-playing games you've basically already missed the point. Go play Dota instead, and compete with people who are trying to win as hard as you are, instead of getting your retardedness all over other peoples escapist fun.

>implying because people like crunchy simulation they are "retards or children" trying to "beat the system" and the whole game has to be about challenge and "lol muh builds and optimization" instead of the story and characters
You're the retard child, here.

...

Personally I have nothing against video games, board games or war games. I just don't want that kind of gameplay in my roleplaying games.

That's why I hated 4e. It felt way too much like a video game.

Agree 100%.

I had never heard d&d players complain about "class balance" until 3.5. I feel like I'm reading the WoW forums sometimes. D&D isn't supposed to be balanced like a video game.

Truth hurts right?
The only thing role-playing games do better than other types of games is the role-playing and shared escapism/story telling part, and those depend more on he players than the system.

The idea of choosing a pen and paper rpg to mainly do dungeoncrawls or complex swordfights is laughable when other types of games provide a better challenge and more decision making that matters.

Don't get me wrong, I love videogames and boardgames, I just like picking the right tool for the job.

Playing role-playing games to compete, to kill a pile of monsters or to collect loot and level up is straight up laughable when there are games like Baldur's Gate, Divinity, DA, various MMOS and MOBAs, and tons of great boardgames like Arcadia Quest, Descent or Heroquest.

If you want to spread your butter with a fork, that's up to you, whatever rocks your boat, but please stop being surprised that others find it retarded.

Role-playing games stopped being a part of the Fantasy fandom and gradually shifted more and more towards gamers, because it's a lot easier to sell books when you need the complex rules and classes or pre-written adventures than it is when you basically introduce people to the idea of improv acting/storytelling with rules to make conflict flow smoothly.

The rules used to be there to prevent the story from grinding to a halt because people would argue about the outcome, but now there's a whole generation of people who think that the rules are the game.

The better the group, the less crunch you need, because you're not relying on the book to curb peoples excesses, that's all the argument you need really.

So do you have an actual complaint about rules-heavy games, or are you just going to keep bitching about gamism and pretending it's the same thing?

Simulation and the narrative are not at odds. For many, part of the joy of role playing is taking part in the believable facsimile of a real functioning world, which (for those people) can absolutely benefit from having believable, concrete, consistent and sometimes in-depth rules which support that style of play and immersion in the world, and therefore story and characters. I get that your preference lies in a singular aspect of the medium, but that's not the case for everyone. Your posts reek of "badwrongfun" and "one TRUE way" bullshit.
You can have your opinions, it just doesn't stop you from also being a close-minded knuckle dragger in this case.

You are making drastic preference-based value statements about factors which are neither actually diametrically opposed (e.g. narrative vs simulation) nor mutually exclusive, despite the vitriolic phrasing of your opinions attempting to pass off the opposite notion. Additionally, your characterization of people who like a differing style of play than yours includes such gems as "trying to win the game," "go back to DotA because vidya does 'your style' better," "right tool for the right job," which are all nonsensical depictions intended to demonize opposing opinions and undercut the preferences of others which actually have little or nothing to do with the garbage you're spouting. That makes >(you) either a moron or a dickhead, possibly both. Either way, jog on.

>lol if you wanna spread your butter with a fork
You are definitely a moron.

What's 13th age? I've recently started diving into it and I really like it.

I like both and all points in between just the same.

Yes, that is an option, not everything has to be polarized.

Friendly reminder that GNS Theory is bunk.

It's decent for talking about individual mechanics or general trends (like half the new games coming out using PbtA being a sign of increasing narrativism), but using it to describe whole games is misleading at best.

The terms "gamist" "narrativist" and "simulationist" have utility, but that's as far as GNS's validity extends.

You're being disingenuous, user.
had a perfectly good complaint. Rules are used to sell books now, to the point you can't play a specific thing in shadowrun until the splatbook for it comes out.

It's sad. It's shit. It creates a culture where Shadowrun belongs to CGL, whereas a better culture would push for the idea that these games and settings belong to your table, even if that's bad for business.

>Shadowrun is shit and its producers are fags, news at 11
One of the two rule-heavy games I enjoy exists only as a single book, with a PDF of errata. The other one is worse about splats, but doesn't do anything half as bad as SR's "buy 4 splats or eat shit" model.

>to the point you can't play a specific thing in shadowrun until the splatbook for it comes out.
bullshit
t. SR 1E/2E gamer, a time when many splatbooks did not exist

Whatever GURPS is

I am enjoying the process of beating up monsters and investigating crooked nobles so far, regardless of labels

I wish people wouldn't want lump 'rules lite' and 'narrative' into the same category.

Call of Cthulhu for example is very much a simulation and that has a incredibly simple character creation and test resolution.

FATE core on the other hand is narrative is it gets and it's full of hundreds of aspect options.

I like a bit of crunch in my combat if only to give most characters more variety than "I attack with my sword/bow/wand because my Brawn/Agility/Magic stat is higher". Players should have situationally advantageous options and combinations of abilities that make them feel like they're all contributing to combat in one way or another, but not all ultimately doing the same thing. Mind you "a bit" should really just be a few action combos and sidegrades, linear progression should either be limited or come in a small but significant set of stages that are reasonably easy to climb with time, significant effort or help from powerful companions, and all the more so with two or all three on your side. If you want, you can trade combat for racing/politics/whatever as long as that thing is the main mechanical focus of your game (a game about managing a business and handling trade as an independent mount salesman would not benefit from being mostly comprised of rules about how to beat your opponent in children's card games).

In most elements of the game outside of this focus or a few closely related systems, however, the fewer hard rules the better. Guidelines are nice and a few generic all terrain abilities (see: a simple skill subsystem) can be useful but they shouldn't detract from the ease of learning the basics of the game, should be easy to use intuitively and if they interfere with the main game at all should be a complement to that system used by clever players and GMs, not an absolute necessity for players to master on top of their existing rules.