You’ve heard me talk a bit about rules lite versus rules heavy. Well, you’ve seen my posts, anyway. It occurred to me that this needed a little more talking about, um, writing about. Whatever. Anyway, if you don’t like reading about my boring fucking origin story, you might want to skip this post. It’s got some of that, and a lot of my personal opinions.
The Bearded Dork and I were having a discussion about this the other day. (Gaming legend Jay Peters and I have also discussed it, but I don’t remember the contents of the talk that well, and I refuse to disrespect the man.) The conversation turned, as it sometimes does, to the use of imagination in RPGs.
Origin story time — like many gamers, I wasn’t a real popular kid. I was actually okay with this, most of the other kids I knew at the time were dumb. I regret to say that I can’t remember the name of the kid who introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons, (The basic version. Some of you might remember the red box it came in. And the crappy dice that you had to use a crayon to color in the numbers.) but we had a crapload of fun playing it. Eventually, I convinced my folks to buy the coveted Red Box for me.
And holy shit, it turned out that we were doing it wrong. I read the rules cover to cover (and even played through the little choose your own path adventure they had) and realized that our imaginations had completely overwhelmed the rules. At the time, I didn’t think this was a bad thing. Somehow, by the time I moved to Montana, that attitude had shifted.
I’d like to blame the AD&D second edition system. I can’t, though, so I’ll blame adolescence instead. If I could bend or break the rules, so could anyone else. It would be anarchy! (And not the good kind, like you want. Or don’t want.) The more rules you had, the better the game was!
Only, that killed my imagination at some point. Sure, I had a lot of fun playing in and with imaginary worlds, but everything eventually came down to a rules call. I couldn’t find rules for doing cool, cinematic things in combat, so I just stopped trying. I used a bit of my brain’s imagination centers when interacting with NPCs (unless I was killing them) or the world, but let’s face it — a lot of games are excuses to imaginarily kill shit.
This is a fine style of gaming for a lot of people. I guess I’m not one of them anymore.
Let us take a look at the games I have been playing for the last few years. Shadowrun has been out a long time, but it is really, really rules heavy. The 3rd edition system has rules for every aspect of combat, and for many (if not all) social situations. You don’t have to role play out the quest for getting more money for a job, you can just roll some dice! D&D in any version has rules for everything. If you subscribed to Dragon Magazine, it had rules for even the most outrageous situations. Pathfinder isn’t much better. It did an excellent job of streamlining many rules, but they’re still there. Hell, they just introduced a new set of sub-rules for fighting dirty.
BASH is rules light. If it isn’t in the rules, the person running the game makes a judgement call. There is little time wasted flipping through the 8.532 x 104 rulebooks normally hauled around by dedicated gamers. Hell, the BASH book is only 132 pages. Compare that to Pathfinder’s (which did combine the Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide) 576 pages.
Let me give you an example. Imagine that our heros are in an alley, fighting a single opponent who is pretty tough. I want to do something cool and cinematic, but I’m having a hard time hitting the guy. In Pathfinder, it goes something like this:
Me: Okay, you said we’re in an alley with some garbage strewn around. Is there any kind of garbage can?
GM: Let me check my notes. (Some waiting happens here. I’ve literally seen this happen.) My notes don’t say there is.
Me: Um, is there a big piece of garbage? Maybe big enough to cover a dude’s head?
GM: Probably. Make a perception check.
(clatter of my trusty twenty sider)
Me: Sweet! Uh, let me check my sheet…19!
GM: Yeah, there’s a thing in a pile that could cover someone’s head. It’s in the pile on the…(dice clattering) left side of the alley.
Me: A thing. Okay, I will take a move action to get over there, and another to pick it up.
GM: Okay, next up is…When it gets back around to me about 10 minutes later:
Me: Okay, I take the…whatever it is, and I’m gonna move up to the guy and throw it over his head.
GM: What?
Me: I’m hoping to blind this guy for a minute so he stops being so hard to hit.
GM: Are there rules for that?
Me: (Sigh) In the Advanced Players Guide. It’s the new dirty trick combat maneuver. I can give him a condition for a little while.
Another Player: I thought we weren’t using that book!
Me: I though we were cool with the feats, spells and combat stuff, just not the new race and class stuff.
GM: I think I said no new stuff yet.
Me: Dude, we talked about this. You said we weren’t gonna use the race and class stuff.
GM: Um…
Me: Fine, I just hit him. (Clatter) Does AC 21 hit?
GM: No.
Yet Another Player: Wait, if you didn’t have your sword out, how did you even try and hit him?
Me: Fine, I miss him with some garbage.
GM: That’s an improvised weapon. Unless you have the catch off guard feat, you provoke an attack of opportunity.
Me: Nope.
GM: (Clatter) Does a 24 hit you?
Me: Sure does.
Fun! Wait, no. Time consuming and frustrating.
Now, in BASH, it might go a little more like this:
Me: Okay, you said we’re in an alley with some garbage strewn around. Is there any kind of garbage can?
GM: That seems likely. Sure. (Pointing at the map) Right there.
Me: Sweet, I grab it, move up and toss it on his head. Hopefully not being able to see will make him easier for us to deal with.
GM: So, you want to confuse him?
Me: Holy shit! Yeah! I’ll spend a hero die to get the confusion power! (pages turing) It usually goes off of the Mind attribute.
GM: But you’re hitting him with it. That seems more like Agility.
Me: That seems reasonable. (clatter of dice) 16.
GM: That beats him. He can’t see, is confused, and it’ll take him a while to get the can off his head.
Me: Git ‘em, guys!
Now, take a few and read those both out loud, in your gaming cadence. Which one takes longer. More importantly, which one seems cooler? Both times, I’m trying to do something cool that’ll help everyone else. In Pathfinder, this takes a while, and is kind of boring. In BASH, it takes a minute, and is fun.
Just to be clear, though, there is still some imagination in rules heavy games. I just see it a lot more in other systems. I want players, GMs, and everyone else in the hobby to get back to imagining things, instead of consulting a book. Maybe you don’t agree with me. That’s okay. Find the game that is right for your style.
It won’t be the one I’m creating here, though.