Do You Enjoy Vague Rules Which Are Open To Interpretation?

[milona]

Does anyone else find it annoying to have to constantly debate with people about what a character can do? Whenever I play in a rules light system it seems like that is all that ever happens, someone is arguing with the GM over whether or not their character can do something. I personally hate it, regardless of what side of the screen I am on.

Can someone explain the appeal to me? In my experience you either get a iron fisted DM who says no to everything, in which case you are constantly frustrated and disappointed, a more lax DM in which case everyone is competing to top one another as the only limits they place are on themselves, or a more reasonable DM who allows things that they think won't cause problems, but then bog the game down with endless debate and deliberation.

Currently I am playing in two games, both of which run off the "the rules are just a guideline" philosophy. Maybe it is just the DM's I am playing under, but I have yet to have one of them approve a character action that fell outside the written rules. On the other hand, on more occasions that I can count I have been denied a rules legal action because the DM didn't like it for whatever reason. This is not fun.

Recently one of them wanted to swap out the standard skill system in PF to the 13th age system, where if I understand it correctly you write up a character biography and then convince the DM that your backstory should allow you to perform the task you want to do in the present. This sounds like it is going to be a nightmare.

On the other hand I remember when I was running a very early version of Heart of Darkness some years ago before the rules were really worked out. One of the players at my table was a door to door salesman for his day job, and he was very good at convincing me to let him do things, to the point where the other players actually got rather jealous and or mad at him about it and stopped having fun.

Really, I don't get the appeal. Unless everyone is on exactly the same page and perfectly unbiased I don't see any advantage to coming up with things on the fly over looking through a heavy rulebook and calculating the proper odds. But judging by the love of rules light games and the almost universal praise of the 5E skill system it seems like I am in the minority. What am I missing?

[Pelle]

Everyone involved playing in good faith perhaps?

[flond]

Generally, the advantage is choosing where you are on a spectrum. Lighter rules allow things to be more breezy (and, in general, in something like 13th age you should let things apply much more than you don't let things apply) and give you more leeway, while heavier systems allow for more differentiation and can suffer from "sorry, you only have fire building, not fire extinguishing, you should have seen that forest fire coming."

[Florian]

Can someone explain the appeal to me? What am I missing?

Rules can only ever cover what the designer created them to do, with something specific in mind. That can make the game pretty inflexible or even dysfunctional when the actual game and the implied game start to become different.

Things actually work fine when you sit down (session zero) before that gam and actually talk about genre, setting and expectations. When someone says "D&D" and has "Conan" in mind, while the other says "D&D" and has "Pun-Pun" in mind, both smile and agree on "D&D"... and then the game grinds to a halt as you described. When both participants agree on either "Conan" or "Pun-Pun", it´s just a little bit of fine-tuning necessary and that it, no particular need to additional rules to moderate how the game plays.

[Knaight]

I play with a group where everyone trusts the GM's judgement, and is at least very near the same page. This works fine, and the described process of arguing with the GM is a rarity, with said arguments being short (two sentences tops). As such this works just fine, where looking through a rule book is just added hassle.

As for the problem with the salesman, it's a case of someone having out of game skills which make them better at the game. I have no more issue with that coming up there than I do with it coming up when the skills in question are system familiarity, probability theory familiarity, general optimization skill, etc. This is despite my skills leaning much more heavily towards numerical intuition and rapidly learning systems than sales or even rhetoric.

With that said, I'm also not playing Pathfinder. Half the point of these systems is that you can learn and use them quickly, where there's a very small set of core rules that can be that small because they let GM judgment in. Using this same philosophy with a much heavier system with a whole bunch of rules is just asking for a headache.

[Lalliman]

To call them vague rules is a rather guiding choice of words. I don't think anyone specifically enjoys vague rules, but I will happily tolerate the vagueness for the sake of having an elegant and concise system. Dealing with tables full of skill DCs and lengthy descriptions of niche exceptions is annoying. Either you have to halt play to look them up, or you have to spend the time and effort to memorise them. I'll take the uncertainty of letting the DM arbitrate what is and isn't possible over dealing with that. If you want complete control and understanding of the game, then why are you playing a game that has a dungeon master to begin with?

Playing a rules light system does indeed require a good DM, cooperative players, and good communication of expectations. And your DM doesn't sound like he's doing a very good job, from the brief insight you provided. One strength of rules heavy systems is that they can mitigate the problems caused by a poorly-attuned group. But I see that as little more than a band-aid. A good group will always be better than a bad group, and I think that a rules light system does more to accommodate the good aspects of a good group.

[S@tanicoaldo]

A player once said that I’m a storyteller first and a DM second, and I’m very lucky that my players really enjoy the stories I try to tell through my games, so I don’t like when mechanics get in the way of fluff, but it seems I’m the minority.

If I could I would do away with all rules and just RP and freeform.

Too bad most players really like the G aspect of RPG, they need their sheets, their numbers, their math, their stats and their rolls. They take joy in rolling a natural 20 and I can't really blame for that, not everybody is up about staying in a room playing a glorified make believe.

[Darth Ultron]

I LOVE it. It is the only way to Game.

The so called rules are just vague suggestions, made up by some people...long, long ago...that are just scribbles on a page. They are good for a ''hum" but are not to be put on a pedestal and in anyway worshiped.

And the real secret is: all rules are open to interpretation. And you don't think that...well, P.T. Barnimum has a quote about this type of person being born....

Though I can see your problems.

Like first of all: There is no debate. The GM says what IS. Period. The End. You are free to ''not like it'', but it does not matter: The DM says what Is.

Second, no rule book covers everything. The people that wrote it were just people...not rule demi gods. Trying to play a game exactly by the scribbles on a page is just silly. Just about no one does that. And you can't really ignore pages 20-44 just as you don't ''like them", but then say pages 45-50 are absolutely carved in stone and must be done exactly as written on the page at all times.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Frame challenge: all non trivial rulesets require interpretation. Not just RPGs, but all rules. The only way to minimize this (not eliminate, because that's impossible) is to restrict the range of possibilities that the system allows and forbid all others categorically. At the extreme you get to a particularly confining board game. Allowing multiple interpretations allows my table to do different things than your table. Which is a good thing in my eyes.

I have no problem with rulings, as long as I trust the DM (and other players) to act in the game's best interests. Then again, no rule will confine them, since the rules only have the power we give them. So I only play with those I trust. I prefer a bit of crunch, but that's for aesthetic reasons, not to avoid vagueness.

I've seen game systems that in the interests of removing vagueness have instead caused nonsense or malsense (the difference is that one has no valid interpretation, while the other has one or more, but they're detrimental to play). I'd much rather have rules with multiple useful interpretations than either of those failures.

[King of Nowhere]

Playing a rules light system does indeed require a good DM, cooperative players, and good communication of expectations. And your DM doesn't sound like he's doing a very good job, from the brief insight you provided. One strength of rules heavy systems is that they can mitigate the problems caused by a poorly-attuned group. But I see that as little more than a band-aid. A good group will always be better than a bad group, and I think that a rules light system does more to accommodate the good aspects of a good group.

and the players are also making a poor job, if they are trying so often to outperform each other by pushing the DM. In a good group the DM takes reasonable decisions and the players accept them. If there are problems, some quiet talking can fix them. In such an environment, too many rules get in the way of fun.

In general, that's true for most facets of life. in the workplace or in personal relationships, the more you can trust the other people, the less hard rules you need. Then someone tries to abuse the flexibility, and you have to stop them by making hard rules. And they'll still try to circumvent those rules, but at least the rules give them some limitations.
Basically, in my experience honest and mature people are better off with loose guidelines. Hard rules are needed to keep those who do not fit those critieria from squabbling tooo much.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Basically, in my experience honest and mature people are better off with loose guidelines. Hard rules are needed to keep those who do not fit those critieria from squabbling tooo much.

Hard rules also are needed for strangers in an organized play scenario (because you won't have the trust needed and one bad apple can cause cascading problems). But those can be added on top of a lighter system by pre-deciding the relevant facts for that case. It doesn't have to infect the rest of the system.

[Max_Killjoy]

Does anyone else find it annoying to have to constantly debate with people about what a character can do? Whenever I play in a rules light system it seems like that is all that ever happens, someone is arguing with the GM over whether or not their character can do something. I personally hate it, regardless of what side of the screen I am on.

Can someone explain the appeal to me? In my experience you either get a iron fisted DM who says no to everything, in which case you are constantly frustrated and disappointed, a more lax DM in which case everyone is competing to top one another as the only limits they place are on themselves, or a more reasonable DM who allows things that they think won't cause problems, but then bog the game down with endless debate and deliberation.

Currently I am playing in two games, both of which run off the "the rules are just a guideline" philosophy. Maybe it is just the DM's I am playing under, but I have yet to have one of them approve a character action that fell outside the written rules. On the other hand, on more occasions that I can count I have been denied a rules legal action because the DM didn't like it for whatever reason. This is not fun.

Recently one of them wanted to swap out the standard skill system in PF to the 13th age system, where if I understand it correctly you write up a character biography and then convince the DM that your backstory should allow you to perform the task you want to do in the present. This sounds like it is going to be a nightmare.

On the other hand I remember when I was running a very early version of Heart of Darkness some years ago before the rules were really worked out. One of the players at my table was a door to door salesman for his day job, and he was very good at convincing me to let him do things, to the point where the other players actually got rather jealous and or mad at him about it and stopped having fun.

Really, I don't get the appeal. Unless everyone is on exactly the same page and perfectly unbiased I don't see any advantage to coming up with things on the fly over looking through a heavy rulebook and calculating the proper odds. But judging by the love of rules light games and the almost universal praise of the 5E skill system it seems like I am in the minority. What am I missing?

On the whole, I agree with you.

I have a friend who adores some obscure diceless systems, and keeps pushing them as "elegant" and "unobstructed"... and I look at them and see nothing but games that consists of a single rule -- "The GM gets to decide everything".

[GungHo]

Depends on the context.

When we're playing Interpretation: The Vaguening, it's fine. We know that the game is going to expect us to act as the gods of the gaps. The framework may barely even exist, but they told you up front, you're building this house and we're not even providing you wood. There's a forest. Here's some saws. Have at it.

However, today I chose Furniture & Rugs and wanted to play a coffee table because it said on the back of the box, "all you need to do is goto Ikea, pick the color and style, assemble per instructions, and place". They didn't say "oh yeah... well, you're gonna have to peel the top off the house because we didn't think you needed doors. Oh, you might want to leave the ladder there because the toilets don't flush... we figured because there were no doors, you'd never try to use the bathroom."

[Satinavian]

Personally i don't enjoy vague rules.

[1337 b4k4]

I enjoy games that have structure but that are honest about the fact that language is impresise by its nature, and that there no way they could reasonably cover every possible situation. I’ve enjoyed both rules heavy (e.g. GURPS) and I’ve enjoyed games that are rules lite (Fate Accelerated). What I have never enjoyed are games that are strong on the “rules as law” attitude and over confident in their precision, because my experience has been those systems lead to the worst arguments either due to hard rules having .weird interactions (e.g. drowning yourself back to life) or due to some situation being close to but not exactly like the rules have a case for, so everyone assumes it will work like that.

As a GM lighter rules systems allow me to be more reactive and improvisational with my games (my preferred way of running a game) and allow me to bring new players into the hobby much easier. For example I played in a 4e campaign for 3 years where by the end of the campaign we still had players who weren’t comfortable with what their character could do and found the level of complexity off putting. So much so that one of then basically just waited until their turn and said “I attack” otherwise. We later picked up a Dungeon World campaign and those same players became alive. Yes the first handful of sessions were a lot of “what can I do?”, but once they realized that what I as a GM was looking for was to tell me what they wanted to do and we’d adjudicate it, they became much more involved. The rules are more vague, but the way the rules interact with the players took them from trying to pick the right tactic from a menu on a character sheet to actually inhabiting the role of their character.

That isn’t to say rules detailed games necessarily prevent that, but my experience has been that new and “casual” gamers find the heaviness of rules detailed games to be more of a distraction than and help.

[Pex]

Heck no.

I like to know what my character can do based on the choices I make and not who is DM that day. It's my character. I'm entitled (ooh I said a bad word for some people) to know how it works. I don't want to relearn how to play the game for every new campaign. I shouldn't have to need a list of questions to ask each DM how something works this time. House rules are fine, but it's a problem when the basic fundamentals of how a game works change because of who is DM that day.

[Max_Killjoy]

Heck no.

I like to know what my character can do based on the choices I make and not who is DM that day. It's my character. I'm entitled (ooh I said a bad word for some people) to know how it works. I don't want to relearn how to play the game for every new campaign. I shouldn't have to need a list of questions to ask each DM how something works this time. House rules are fine, but it's a problem when the basic fundamentals of how a game works change because of who is DM that day.

Again, on the whole, I agree with this.

[Quertus]

I've had a number of GMs with, shall we say, a rather poor grasp on reality. If there's any way it can be coded into the rules, by all means, encode away!

Dealing with tables full of skill DCs and lengthy descriptions of niche exceptions is annoying. Either you have to halt play to look them up, or you have to spend the time and effort to memorise them.

Or you look them up when it's not your turn, so, come your turn, you're ready with the relevant details, and the game keeps flowing smoothly. Much more smoothly than it would with a party of rules lawyers arguing with a GM with no grasp on reality.

Heck no.

I like to know what my character can do based on the choices I make and not who is DM that day. It's my character. I'm entitled (ooh I said a bad word for some people) to know how it works. I don't want to relearn how to play the game for every new campaign. I shouldn't have to need a list of questions to ask each DM how something works this time. House rules are fine, but it's a problem when the basic fundamentals of how a game works change because of who is DM that day.

Pretty much this.

If I come over to your house to play Monopoly, I expect to understand how the dice, turns, and money work. I don't want to relearn that for every table!

[Mato]

Does anyone else find it annoying to have to constantly debate with people about what a character can do? Whenever I play in a rules light system it seems like that is all that ever happens, someone is arguing with the GM over whether or not their character can do something. I personally hate it, regardless of what side of the screen I am on.

Welcome to being middle aged, at least in mental development if not in body. Teenagers have an inherent disposition towards arguing against the status quo in order to prove their independence to them selves. And if you've ever argued with one, you know how hard it is to convince them of anything.

Plus getting angry also releases adrenaline and can closely link to getting a rush, many people become addicted to it similar to thrill seekers, runners, or hot food lovers as well. You'll recognize the concept if I use the phase "drama queen", is when someone doesn't get enough interact out of their stressful work life and managing their children and instead turn to verbally lashing out over minor things in order to fulfill their desires they claim they don't have. And it's not that having those things means you don't have some sort of addiction but it's more of you get enough through normal interaction you have no desire to seek out any more.

And since the discussions center around an opinion. Young adults identify them selves based on their opinions. In other words, if you discredit their opinion on a matter you have personally insulted them. Without an external network of validation, like being successful at work, having a supportive spouse, being top of their class, or other personal forms of accomplishments their personal ego is entirely based on their online persona. And remember the current generation has had a life long experience of being rewarded simply for being them selves rather than through in actual merits. They simply don't have anything else but arguing on the Internet, and because that sounds poor their psyche is unable to acknowledge it.

Which arrives to the final point. Studies have proven that an emotional response such as anger has a huge impact in how you remember how the events played out, they will always remember the event in a favorable way and dismiss the negative implications it has with their relationships, be it personal, business, or online. In other words, it's almost impossible for them to admit they have a problem because they are unable to perceive a problem on their side to begin with.

But the better question to ask your self (and not online where you'll feel you must defend your self) is. Did you post this to stimulate an argument as proof of your mendacious maturity or did you post this as an honest question as you become aware of this phenomenon and you are trying to understand it better?

[King of Nowhere]

Heck no.

I like to know what my character can do based on the choices I make and not who is DM that day. It's my character. I'm entitled (ooh I said a bad word for some people) to know how it works. I don't want to relearn how to play the game for every new campaign. I shouldn't have to need a list of questions to ask each DM how something works this time. House rules are fine, but it's a problem when the basic fundamentals of how a game works change because of who is DM that day.

ok, better to be clear:

the basics cannot be vague. I need a good framework on what characters can and cannot do, that has to be pretty solid. I must know exactly how much bonus my monk has to attack, trip, or grapple, and how that compares to my enemies. Free interpretation is for details. Generally when I must engage I describe the action I want to take as a set of tumbles, jumps, movements that would put me in the right position and then attack. And there are no clear rules for that - well, sometimes there are, sometimes there is some ambiguity and sometimes the battleground is just not described in enough details - and the DM adjudicates the DC and we roll with it. And if we had to provide detailed descriptions of the battleground and go all "your monk think he probably won't make that jump" "ok, would it be more feasible if - action sequence B -?" it would really take hours, and we'd lose some possibility. Once I used a summoned bear as stepping stone during a jump. Today I had an extended exchange with a dragon in midflight in a pit over a pool of acid as I kept jumping from walls to the dragon and back to walls. It's the kind of thing that makes for very enjoyable action, and they fit a lot with the character concept, while being too strange to have actual rules.

A good example that comes to mind is chess. To play chess you need to know exactly how each piece moves, and the rules for winning and drawing. Those must be set in stone, it would not do if someone decided to "wing it" and just move some piece irregularly.
but then the chess federation also established a set of other rules detailing which hand you have to use when you ccapture a piece, the exact sequence of movements to pperform when promoting a pawn - all rigorously to be done with one hand, or your opponent may call it irregular move and cause you to lose the game - and to whom you must notify when you go to the toilet (tournament games can last longer than 6 hours, it is a necessity) and a lot of other minutiae, and those rules are damn annoying and they add nothing to the game. So, some rules are necessary, toomany rules are annoying.

[1337 b4k4]

If I come over to your house to play Monopoly, I expect to understand how the dice, turns, and money work. I don't want to relearn that for every table!

While the larger point is understood, it's amusing you picked Monopoly as your example given that almost no one actually plays monopoly by the rules.

Edit:
------

And thinking about it, this might be a good argument why more and better defined rules are not always a good thing. Good rules are only useful if everyone follows and reads them. But as we can see from the link above, or The Alexandrian and really any discussion on rules where it turns out the actual rule is different than most people think, a lot of our games and pastimes are learned by "osmosis" and oral tradition rather than reading a rule book. And it's been this way for almost as long as we've had games. How many of you ever read the Uno rule book and know that you can't play a Draw 4 card unless it's the only valid card in your hand? How many of you have read the baseball rules and know that opposing players aren't supposed to fraternize while in uniform or know how the infield fly rule works? If there are too many rules to read, you're just as likely to be playing by rules you don't know until you sit down at the table.

Which isn't to say having defined rules is a bad thing. MLB would be terrible if every home team had their own "house rules" for how to play the game. But at the same time, sandlot baseball would be awful if everyone was having to follow all the rules all the time, because a sandlot game isn't supposed to be an MLB game.

[Pex]

While the larger point is understood, it's amusing you picked Monopoly as your example given that almost no one actually plays monopoly by the rules.

I don't either.

[ImNotTrevor]

It's hilarious to me that virtually all complaints (aside from taste, of course) about vague rules and DM issues are solved by having a conversation. You know, like what grownups do when they have a problem.

I like vague rules. I don't swap groups often and usually I GM. If people want to know how I GM, they need not wait long because I explain it early. Any decisions I make, I justify immediately. I make it clear that my players can make a case, but ultimately I'll go with what makes sense to me.
Sometimes they turn me around. Sometimes they don't. This process rarely takes longer than about 30 seconds.

And if you can make the level of abstraction clear for everyone, then there's even fewer problems.

This is why I do a Session 0. Always. Even with the same group. There is ALWAYS a Session 0.

[Inchhighguy]

It always amazes me how people say they want to play a game....yet also seem to want to argue forever.

[D+1]

Both as GM and player, I prefer a game with rules which are clear and comprehensive enough to minimize the NEED for interpretation. Interpretation should only be necessary in UNUSUAL or at best UNCOMMON situations. When interpretation IS necessary, then if the GM (whether that means ME or someone else) can't be trusted to do it swiftly, intelligently, fairly, then I should be looking for a different game to play or different people to play it with.

I, and any other decent game master can make up rules (or interpret them) as often as is required, but it should not be the goal of rules to REQUIRE that. It should be the goal of rules to make that LESS necessary, not more.

That said, there are games that revolve around not only the GM but the players as well engaging in creative, imaginative interpretation of results (FFG's SW games for example) and I can and do thoroughly enjoy them, but those are clear exceptions. They are fun, I think, in large part BECAUSE they are exceptions.

[Pex]

Edit:
------

And thinking about it, this might be a good argument why more and better defined rules are not always a good thing. Good rules are only useful if everyone follows and reads them. But as we can see from the link above, or The Alexandrian and really any discussion on rules where it turns out the actual rule is different than most people think, a lot of our games and pastimes are learned by "osmosis" and oral tradition rather than reading a rule book. And it's been this way for almost as long as we've had games. How many of you ever read the Uno rule book and know that you can't play a Draw 4 card unless it's the only valid card in your hand? How many of you have read the baseball rules and know that opposing players aren't supposed to fraternize while in uniform or know how the infield fly rule works? If there are too many rules to read, you're just as likely to be playing by rules you don't know until you sit down at the table.

Which isn't to say having defined rules is a bad thing. MLB would be terrible if every home team had their own "house rules" for how to play the game. But at the same time, sandlot baseball would be awful if everyone was having to follow all the rules all the time, because a sandlot game isn't supposed to be an MLB game.

Of course. If I don't like the rules I don't play that game. I never played 4E for that reason, but I knew what my character could do if I were to play.

It's hilarious to me that virtually all complaints (aside from taste, of course) about vague rules and DM issues are solved by having a conversation. You know, like what grownups do when they have a problem.

I like vague rules. I don't swap groups often and usually I GM. If people want to know how I GM, they need not wait long because I explain it early. Any decisions I make, I justify immediately. I make it clear that my players can make a case, but ultimately I'll go with what makes sense to me.
Sometimes they turn me around. Sometimes they don't. This process rarely takes longer than about 30 seconds.

And if you can make the level of abstraction clear for everyone, then there's even fewer problems.

This is why I do a Session 0. Always. Even with the same group. There is ALWAYS a Session 0.

Except for absolutely new players who never played the game before and need to learn how to play, Session 0 should not require those who have played and know how to play to forget everything they know about how to play and relearn step by step how this DM plays the game. Once those new players learn how to play, how are they going to react when they play their second game but that DM plays it differently using the same vague rules but interpreted differently? What if despite a Session 0 the different interpretation was never discussed because it wasn't relevant but then during the game play it becomes relevant and the player now learns he can't do what he always did before. Suppose he climbed a tree in the previous game just because he wanted to but now in this game he needs to roll using a game statistic he didn't invest in to climb trees because he didn't know he needed to? Who asks about climbing trees in Session 0? Why should it be asked about for every DM a person plays with?

[1337 b4k4]

Of course. If I don't like the rules I don't play that game. I never played 4E for that reason, but I knew what my character could do if I were to play.

I don't even think it's a matter of liking the rules or not. I like GURPS rules. And honestly the game is dead simple, but it's very clear to me that the volume of rules leads to two things:

1) A dearth of GURPS players, and even more so GURPS GMs
2) I would highly doubt anyone has played a 100% by the book GURPS game.

Now #1 is an issue, but #2 isn't really a problem, but it does mean that a lot of the rules aren't serving the purpose of unifying from GM to GM and table to table. This table uses hit locations, that one drops damage types, this one over here replaced the primary magic system. And again, to a large extent this isn't a problem, especially since GURPS is a toolkit first and a specific game second. But the same holds true for other more focuses systems that are rule heavy.The more rules, the less likely they're all actually being used.

Except for absolutely new players who never played the game before and need to learn how to play, Session 0 should not require those who have played and know how to play to forget everything they know about how to play and relearn step by step how this DM plays the game. Once those new players learn how to play, how are they going to react when they play their second game but that DM plays it differently using the same vague rules but interpreted differently? What if despite a Session 0 the different interpretation was never discussed because it wasn't relevant but then during the game play it becomes relevant and the player now learns he can't do what he always did before. Suppose he climbed a tree in the previous game just because he wanted to but now in this game he needs to roll using a game statistic he didn't invest in to climb trees because he didn't know he needed to? Who asks about climbing trees in Session 0? Why should it be asked about for every DM a person plays with?

You know, this is less a problem with interpretive rules themselves and more a problem with interpretive rules that try to be as specific as rules heavy systems. If your system makes it so that investment in very specific skills is important (e.g. climb trees, or spot vs find hidden vs notice vs evaluate) then you absolutely need strongly defined rules, because as you point out, there's no way to know at the beginning how to invest otherwise.

Interpretive rules must by definition be broad focused on the general case, and if minutia are important, provide a system for resolving that minutia at the moment it becomes relevant and not punish you for not having done so previously. Players in an interpretive system shouldn't have to know the specifics about what they're good at until it becomes specifically relevant, and otherwise the broad competency categories should be sufficient for most use cases. To put it numerically, the difference between non specific ability and specific ability in an interpretive system should be within 1 standard deviation of probability. In a specific system where the impacts and importance of those details can be known up front, you can have a wider split.

[Pex]

I don't even think it's a matter of liking the rules or not. I like GURPS rules. And honestly the game is dead simple, but it's very clear to me that the volume of rules leads to two things:

1) A dearth of GURPS players, and even more so GURPS GMs
2) I would highly doubt anyone has played a 100% by the book GURPS game.

Now #1 is an issue, but #2 isn't really a problem, but it does mean that a lot of the rules aren't serving the purpose of unifying from GM to GM and table to table. This table uses hit locations, that one drops damage types, this one over here replaced the primary magic system. And again, to a large extent this isn't a problem, especially since GURPS is a toolkit first and a specific game second. But the same holds true for other more focuses systems that are rule heavy.The more rules, the less likely they're all actually being used.

Ah, got it. I can forgive a DM/Player not remembering a rule that gets lost in the shuffle. I admit to that happening to me in 3E/Pathfinder so I have to forgive it in others. Often it's something that comes up rarely enough we end up assuming how it works. When we learn the truth the DM decides with player input whether to use the official rule or continue as we have been. It's something to deal with, but I don't view it as a casus belli to condemn having a subjectively large number of defined rules. (Not saying you are.) I chalk it up to we don't all have eidetic memory so whatever. However, I still want those defined rules. If out of all those defined rules a vague rule or two slips in that needs interpretation, gosh darn shame on you game but also whatever. When the vagueness is purposely designed and/or carelessly left in for a subjective significant amount of those rules, then it's curse you game designers I wish you did your job correctly. I can still enjoy playing the game, but I won't stop complaining about it.

[Quertus]

While the larger point is understood, it's amusing you picked Monopoly as your example given that almost no one actually plays monopoly by the rules.

Edit:
------

And thinking about it, this might be a good argument why more and better defined rules are not always a good thing. Good rules are only useful if everyone follows and reads them. But as we can see from the link above, or The Alexandrian and really any discussion on rules where it turns out the actual rule is different than most people think, a lot of our games and pastimes are learned by "osmosis" and oral tradition rather than reading a rule book. And it's been this way for almost as long as we've had games. How many of you ever read the Uno rule book and know that you can't play a Draw 4 card unless it's the only valid card in your hand?

I'm glad my choice was amusing.

I'm a rules lawyer. I actually knew the Wild Draw 4 rule.

I expect Monopoly to have house rules. But I expect to understand the buying power of a "twenty", and to not have to get a PhD in "this table's Monopoly rules".

It's hilarious to me that virtually all complaints (aside from taste, of course) about vague rules and DM issues are solved by having a conversation. You know, like what grownups do when they have a problem.

I like vague rules. I don't swap groups often and usually I GM.

So, I'm a fan of communication, and of a well-run Session 0. So why do I take the opposite stance?

One thing I note is your GM-centric stance - I usually take a player-centric stance. Yes, knowledge:GM is a very important player skill. But, given the lack of predictability (and general sanity) in many of my GMs, I'd prefer the solid base of the rules.

I guess I'm used to having to try to hammer the GM into some semblance of sanity. And the rules help with that.

Also, I think in terms of having lots of GMs being the optimal experience. It's great to have dozens of styles of content. It's horrible to deal with dozens of sets of rules and assumptions.

[FreddyNoNose]

Does anyone else find it annoying to have to constantly debate with people about what a character can do? Whenever I play in a rules light system it seems like that is all that ever happens, someone is arguing with the GM over whether or not their character can do something. I personally hate it, regardless of what side of the screen I am on.

Can someone explain the appeal to me? In my experience you either get a iron fisted DM who says no to everything, in which case you are constantly frustrated and disappointed, a more lax DM in which case everyone is competing to top one another as the only limits they place are on themselves, or a more reasonable DM who allows things that they think won't cause problems, but then bog the game down with endless debate and deliberation.

Currently I am playing in two games, both of which run off the "the rules are just a guideline" philosophy. Maybe it is just the DM's I am playing under, but I have yet to have one of them approve a character action that fell outside the written rules. On the other hand, on more occasions that I can count I have been denied a rules legal action because the DM didn't like it for whatever reason. This is not fun.

Recently one of them wanted to swap out the standard skill system in PF to the 13th age system, where if I understand it correctly you write up a character biography and then convince the DM that your backstory should allow you to perform the task you want to do in the present. This sounds like it is going to be a nightmare.

On the other hand I remember when I was running a very early version of Heart of Darkness some years ago before the rules were really worked out. One of the players at my table was a door to door salesman for his day job, and he was very good at convincing me to let him do things, to the point where the other players actually got rather jealous and or mad at him about it and stopped having fun.

Really, I don't get the appeal. Unless everyone is on exactly the same page and perfectly unbiased I don't see any advantage to coming up with things on the fly over looking through a heavy rulebook and calculating the proper odds. But judging by the love of rules light games and the almost universal praise of the 5E skill system it seems like I am in the minority. What am I missing?

I just follow Protocol 23