As rules light games get ever more popular, I must admit, I don't get it.
Why are rules light games so darn popular these days?
The common answers from my FL game store is that they are fast and easy. Problem is, most of the guys telling me this are guys that have been gaming for so long that GURPS is fast and easy to them, they can roll up HERO characters in less than 10 minutes. Makes me doubt that this is their only motivation.
Am I being too cynical here? Is the fast and easy answer the only one or is there something else going on I haven't grasped yet?
Sure, if you're familiar with it, most systems can be fast. And people that "grew up" gaming when there was the choice of maybe 5 systems, each more arcane than the last, picked one and stuck with it. They now consider it fast, because they know it inside and out.
But to people just getting into gaming, or switching systems, they aren't. So light rules systems are easy to grasp quickly. And in an environment with hundreds of systems and settings, each with their own ups and downs, people are tempted to try different things. So the lower the entry barrier, the better.
Lastly, light systems can be a lot easier on the DM. Less prep, less remembering, etc.
Sometimes the system can get in the way of what's more dramatically interesting.
I know Vampire the Masquerade system backwards... but that doesn't mean that I like to have everything statted up and rolling the right dice every instant.
There are plenty of reasons why rules-light games are well-liked. For some people, the amount of rules are perfect in that they don't want to be bogged down by rules during gameplay. For others, it's easier to keep tabs on the rules off the top of their heads. They tend to be simpler and much more straightforward. Then, there are those who like rules-light because it gives the rules lawyers far less ammunition to ruin a game with.
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I guess I should have been more specific: I'm really trying to figure out why rules light games seem to be more popular now than say, 5 years ago. Part of it I think is that there are some very good rules light games out right now, but I don't think thats everything to why these games have been rising in popularity compared to their rules-heavy cousins
As rules light games get ever more popular, I must admit, I don't get it.
Why are rules light games so darn popular these days?
The common answers from my FL game store is that they are fast and easy. Problem is, most of the guys telling me this are guys that have been gaming for so long that GURPS is fast and easy to them, they can roll up HERO characters in less than 10 minutes. Makes me doubt that this is their only motivation.
Character making isn't the only part of the game system that is time consuming. There's also slowness in run-time, while the game is on. In fact, the run-time kind of slowness is a lot more important than the character-creation slowness, becuase run-time slowness happens when other people are watching and waiting so they can take their turn. Charcter gen doesn't happen every session (well, maybe in a bad game with a killer GM it does), so it's a one-shot, one-time, up-front burden on your time. But things like taking 10 minutes to resolve a combat round instead of taking 1 minute, each time there's a combat round, happening again and again and again, while people are waiting fpr their turn to go, and getting bored, now THAT makes a *huge* difference.
I think it's the runtime speed more so than the character compilation speed - thats what most people are seeking when they look for a rules-light game.
There are times when I'm looking for a complicated tactical system, where making careful choices of which spell to cast, which combat maneuver to use, which Charm or combo to activate and when is a vital part of the game. Heck there are times when I'm happy with a complicated sub/meta game (like character creation in many systems). At these times, I play D&D, or Exalted, or something like that.
There are other times when I don't want to make tactical decisions, I want to make narrative ones, or when I want to focus on other things than combat but still have combat a possibility. At those times, I'm more interested in having the combat take little time and involve few decisions, and play something more like Everway.
I imagine there are some people who basically stay in the latter mode, or for whom the former mode is such a default that games in the latter more are exciting and interesting, while games in the former mode are "more of the same" and boring.
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