Actually, the SMG will be shooting the bullets faster, due to its longer barrel . (around 1100 fps from a pistol with a 4 inch barrel, vs around 1250 fps from a SMG with an 8 inch barrel).

(some edits form numbers)

ok, but is that actually enough to translate into a better damage code?

Roughly thats a 25% increase in Kinetic energy (based on (v*v)mass/2). Presuming mass of the bullet is the same.

Back to the original topic, the less information the rules give you and the less rules there are, the more flexible the game is. An extremely rules-lite and setting-lite game can be extremely flexible and fit almost any gaming group if that group is willing to work to fill in the holes.

But, there comes the point where rules-lite and flexible-setting transforms into paying $40 for 300 blank pages bound in a beautiful blank hardcover.
There comes a point where the rules are so lite and the setting is so flexible that actually paying money for it is an incredibly stupid thing to do. People don't buy RPG books that can be boiled down to "just make up whatever you want". People want rules for stuff and people want settings that include stuff.


On the other hand, there is a huge difference between a comprehensive ruleset and a convoluted ruleset.

As you add more and more rules, it becomes inevitable that some rules will not match up with the others and you'll just end up with something that resembles the US Federal Code (including the Tax Code) in it' daunting convolutedness.

Even if you can successfully create a core ruleset that that can take infinite additions without modifications, as attempt to make include everything that anyone can imagine in that ruleset simply leads to a game that is so complicated to learn that no one will ever use more than a fraction of it.

This latter fact can be seen when comparing the original D&D to D&D3.0 and 3.5. The original D&D had a complete ruleset in the same way that chess had a complete ruleset. It did not provide rules for every possible situation and the rules that were provided significantly limited player possibilities, but it had all of the rules that were necessary to play the game. It was easy to learn, even with the tables that you had to refer to. But with all of the various possibilities offered by modern D&D supplements, it is impossible for any GM to adequately learn all of it.

People don't complain that chess has no rules for moving pawns sideways or teleporting Bishops to the Dark Dimension of Strygor. That is the game. The point is to play within the limitations given, not whine and complain until someone releases a more comprehensive supplement.

And, honestly, I don't want the most detailed RPG rules possible. I don't want my character to die of a ruptured bladder because I didn't put enough skill points into urination and he has a several bad rolls over the course of several days game time.
We don't need infinite detail. We don't need a rule or a skill for everything. We certainly don't need a urination skill or urination skill rolls.
We don't need them not because they are unrealistic. A properly applied urination skill can be realistic. We don't need them because the rules can be complete without them, unless you are playing some sort of urination game.

What matters most in game design is not comprehensiveness or detail, but completeness and playability. If it is possible to create a rules-legal situation where the rules cease to work, then you have a problem. The game is incomplete and people will break it horribly. This happens rather often in some games and is often a result of adding rules without properly considering how they interact with other rules.
If you have too much detail or too many possibilities, no one will be able to learn the game well enough to play it.

Tricky question. The problem is that different people need/want different rules, sometimes even the game or character they are playing changes what kind of rules they want/need.

My group plays Shadowrun, recently switched to 4th Ed, and D&D 3E. In both cases, what rules we use, and how complex they are, depends on what we know, and what style we want - and on what effect a rule has on the exact game, campaign and even character it concerns.

I am the GM, and my policy is to use as few rules as I can get away with, and trying to avoid making or changing general rules if all that is needed is a special rule.

Just because boosting up adept power X might cause an unbalance if combined with cyberware Y and weapon Z doesn't mean it shouldn't be done if a player's characters is more fun with it and that combination won't be used by PC or NPC. As long as the actual character using it is balanced I don't worry about hypothetical consequences.

Regarding the complex/abstract relation, I prefer to have abstract rules, and complex fluff if desired. As an example, all of us in my group have military experience. So, we know about encumbrance, marching, unwieldy gear, ammo etc. Our combat scenes use the abstract rules though because we don't "Play the system" to minmax within the rules, but simply use the rules to decide if an action works or not. We pick our gear, then look what stats it has, not the other way around. Same for rules. By the rules, I roll twice for my character's two shots, and see the effect of the shots - one dead enemy. In the game, that does not always translate to my character shooting twice with a pistol, it could also be described as "pull the trigger until the enemy drops" or "empties the magazine into the enemy, dropping him".

I also care almost exclusively for the actual effects of something in game, not for how rules-compliant it is. If a character, gear combination, or tactic is completely legal by the rules, but unbalanced or disruptive in my specific campaign, then it gets vetoed. If something is balanced in its actual use, and doesn't disrupt gameplay, it usually can be added without much of a problem.

To sum it up:
- I prefer abstract rules to resolve the outcome of actions, adding details as fluff.
- I also prefer to judge rules by the actual, not the hypothetical results in a specific game/campaign, and ban/allow something based upon this.
- I prefer to solve questions not covered by the rules with simple, one-shot calls, usually by adding/subtracting a modifer to an action, or making a dice roll - for the specific situation only.

I think the difference in philosophy here is that my approach is to first create a consistent world, and then create a campaign inside of that world. From the sounds of it, your approach is that the campaign is the outermost layer.

You're going to Hell for that approach, but I suppose there's no point to trying to make you see the error of your ways in life

~J

Hehe, I was doing it your way (and still have to battle urges to react with "But... if I add this and that and that, then this will be overpowered!"), but over time, my playstyle changed. I have to say though that our campaign relies more on "soft rules" (relations between players and GM) than "hard rules" (game mechanics).

The main goal for us is to have fun in game, and any rule we use has to serve that goal. If a rule makes it harder to run a game for the GM and therefore detracts from his fun, then it is likely to be dropped. In the same way, if a rule is in the way of a player having fun, there's a good chance of it to be revised. When player and GM goals do not overlap, then we compromise. A minor inconvenience for a GM is ok if it greatly benefits the players, and vice versa. It ends up being a sort of balance of power, restricting abuse from either member of the group, since "but it's within the rules" means not as much as "but it ruins my fun".

Or, to sum it up - the "limits" in our game are the wishes of the members of the group.

Not really, because in many of the examples mentioned, we'd not even check the rules. No one here would even think of raacing in a truck because the rules say those are faster than a sports car. If anyone would catch it we'd laugh, and ignore it. Same for the motorcycle stuff.

And, as I said, we have military experience, we do not try to minmax against common sense. We have had once a player who had no experience, and tried to stack on weapons and all - after a few gotcha games he stopped that, since he realised how heavy even a single plastic rifle becomes if you're holding it all day while moving around.

(And, incidentally, I would rule that any experienced rigger character would pick the best car, even if the player had no clue about the stats. If in the shadowrun world a truck is a better race car than a sportscar, then realistically, a racer would know this. I don't care much for characters suddenly losing half their brain and making stupid mistakes because a player forgot something.)

Do we keep track of bullets? Why, if it is needed, yes. If the characters strand on an island with just to magazines between all three, then we count each single bullet. If the characters are on an average run, and don't expend too much ammo, we don't count it. If a situation comes up where the amount of remaining ammo is important, we just quickly recap the fights, and agree on how many magazines would be left.

My example of "emptying the magazine" was mentioned because in some situations, a character would not simply use the one or two shots to drop an enemy, but shoot several times, if only because one could not be sure (or failed a perception test) if the enemy was already out before shooting again.

As I said, we don't play very competitively. It's not "GM against the players". Tactics also don't really fail for nothing - if something is disruptive, then I simply ask the players not to use it anymore, or we think together of a way to make it fit without troubles. Since we all want to have fun, and realise we can't have fun without each other, there is not much of a problem finding a compromise or solution in such cases.

(As an example: If a player in my campaign wants a panther assault cannon, then he simply asks me "hey, I'd like my character to have one", and I start thinking of a way to add it in, usually during a run, or as the goal of a run, unless I think it would be disruptive. Same for other stuff.)

edit: blah, nm

I don't think so. The appeal is in the details, even though the result - usually dead NPC - is the same.

And usually, the options that are codified are rather limited. Stuff like shooting at barrels of chemicals, dropping a chandelier, improvising tear gas in a lab, running over a hallway floor covered in soap water - all that stuff has no exact rules, yet adding those "once a campaign" rules will overload a system. The best you get is the GM making a call, using existing rules as a guideline - which runs straight into "result the same, means differently" territory.

Again, it depends on what you want in your game. Some people need those rules to be able to pick the "best" results, others might not really care, and are glad they can pick what seems the most logical or stylish without too many mechanical differences.

I'd feel more hindered and stifled by too many rules, herded into minmaxing, but then, my "granularity" starts at another point than your definition.

We prefer to use logical actions based upon real life experience (f.e., all of us were in the military, so we know some stuff about guns), not based upon game mechanics.

Game mechanics often do have a "best gun" and "best move". Take the old "taking aim" rules from SR3. In almost every case, shooting twice was much, much better than shooting once but with a -1 to the TN. In SR3, an assault rifle also was inferiour to a heavy pistol if used in semi-automatic mode - despite rapid aimed semi-automatic fire being the most common way we were trained to use the rifles in the army, and a rifle being more effective at it too than a pistol.

Don't get me started on weight either - anyone who wrote that 10 shots weigh a pound probably never shot a gun in his life.

It really comes down to that I'd rather rule something on the spot, and have the game continue, than have exact rules for all situations, and spend hours reading up. It works for our campaign.

Wow, what a thread to sift to. To be honest, I'm skipping to the end to add my two bits...


What I've found is that people and their preferences are as varied as the number of game systems out there. Some folks like crunch (system mechanics for every facet of playable life) some folks like to freewheel through games and keep it rules-light.

One of the core parts of what makes the latter work is GM FIAT. The GM is able to DECIDE. The thing that makes this work is trust in the GM's ability to make decisions to keep the game fun, somewhat fair, and tell a good story. Without trust, this doesn't work. Trusting the GM to decide between a game mechanic and what is logical or makes a good dramatic moment is a cornerstone of a GM Fiat game.

Some folks have been burned by GM Fiat games. I know I have. I however still prefer them to games that have rules and mechanics for every single nuance of gameplay.

Some systems, usually indie games have intricate systems for things like social interactions, and how conflicts are resolved outside of simply talking through issues in character. Some folks dig em, some don't.

I believe, and this is my opinion only...that with games with a lot of rules for everything, you need less of the soft skills of GMing (being able to adapt on the fly, hold together a plot and remember all the character nuances as well as the NPC nuances, and make it all work in the end) and requires more memorization of the game system.

In games that are lighter in the rules, more of those soft skills are needed, and honestly, it's a much harder game to run. Well...harder to run WELL. I think many GMs like to think they are good at this but most aren't.

Rules often are trying to mimic a style of play. Cinematic, realistic, whatever. Also they try and give the players the type of experience they want: crunchy, rules-light, deep immersive, tactical play, whatever.

What you end up with is two separate things going on in-game: The Story/ Drama and the System/ Mechanics. Everyone has their preferences. Some dig one side more than others. Some like a balance or like a game weighted one way or another. All games can fall in to these: from SR4 to Dogs in the Vineyard, to HERO, to Savage Worlds.

The important thing is that the players (including the GM) decide up-front what they all want out of the game and what kind of game they want to really play. (Social Contract?) Really, as long as everyone is on the same sheet of music, the game will fly. If they aren't, nothing will save it but compromise.

I'll reply in more depth later, but for now:

Using the 'well I have a good grasp of how it works in real life' really has problems in games with magic or whatever that people don't have any understanding they can apply at all.

Heck. Look at the problems with SR4. When we try and apply what we know about computer security to the matrix rules, it all goes to hell.

I want to see internal consistency in my rule set

To respond to an old point, there is a huge difference between a complete but lite and flexible ruleset and a rigid well-defined ruleset, either complete or incomplete.

To use the example of the wet floor, it is counter productive to have specific rules rules about how wet a floor must be before modifiers apply to running, for example, because in that case the GM must either make up something on the fly, or there must be rules to determine the both volume of urine in the PCs bladder and how well it spreads. This, of course, brings us back to the urination test. Not only that, but it also requires keeping track of liquid intake and fluid the processing rate of the kidneys. And this leads to dozens of other rules pertaining to drinking and urination.

There would also need to be modifiers for other sorts of terrain hazards, such as pebbles and reverse conveyor belts. This leads us to dozens of other rules.


The more specific and inflexible the rules are, the more of them are necessary to create a complete ruleset.

A single modifier for running on rough or difficult terrain and GM discretion to determine what qualifies as such is almost always preferable.

i don't think that a well-defined ruleset needs to be rigid. any ruleset that is too rigid is bad, generally speaking, as is any ruleset that is too flexible.

Can you give us an example of a well-defined yet flexible ruleset that has been in print? (That we can reasonably track down).

The only one that's coming to mind is SilCore 2.0, for me.

the good parts of SR3. most of the combat system, for instance, can be used with no modification to describe a huge number of situations with passable accuracy, and chunks of it (knockdown rules, permanent injury rules) can be easily ignored for groups that want to speed things up. not a perfect example; there are a lot of details that could be tuned for greater realism, ease of play, and consistency, and it has definite problems with scaling.

I tried using SR for a fantasy game at one point. It worked okay, other than having a lot of legacy stuff I had no use for and a lotta stuff I wanted to improve on (greater efficacy of spirit conjuration, since anyone with the skill could do it). For a space game I ran, though, it did work great.

Well, except for spaceship combat. I kinda hadda fudge that.

Yeah, the vehicle rules really aren't set up to deal with airless, featureless environments.

~J

What's wrong with them there? I've used them for that, and they're a little dull in some cases (certain types of chases come down to just a series of Acceleration tests, for example), but they work.

~J

Actually, I've used SR4 for CBT:RPG (instead of the actual CBT:RPG) and it worked great.