Episode: 3325
Title: HPR3325: Games and rules
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3325/hpr3325.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 20:50:38

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,325 for Friday,
the 30th of April 2021.
To its show is entitled, games and rules and is part
of the series table top gaming it is hosted by Clot 2
and is about 25 minutes long and carries a clean flag.
The summary is talking about the conundrum of rules light
and rules heavy game systems.
This episode of HBR is brought to you by
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Everybody you're listening to Hacker Public Radio. My name is Clot 2
and in this game I want to talk about gaming.
Actually specifically I want to talk about game rules
and the quantity of rules in a game.
We've been playing a lot. I've been doing the Hacker Public Radio
RPG club in which we play a bunch of everyone's invited by the way
if you want to ever play a tabletop role playing game.
Every month we or so we swap out what system we're playing
and just play a different game every month or four to five to six sessions
and then we swap. We switch systems so it might not be exactly a month
might be a little bit over whatever doesn't matter.
Point is that's what we've been doing. It's been a lot of fun
and it's exposed all of us to a lot of different game systems
that we may or may not have any experience with before and it's been great for me
because I've been so far game mastering the games
and that's been great because some of these games I've played but never
game mastered or I've only game mastered once and really want to
game master again so it's been it's been fun all around but one of the
things that it really does highlight are the rules of a game.
How a game is kind of constructed and put together and what makes it a game
and all of these big questions and this isn't a question that
I have come up with myself this is a classic question and conundrum
within the tabletop role playing community or even and even any tabletop game really
is it's the question of how many rules are too many rules or how many
aren't enough and this applies for like I say lots of different games
you have board games that have a lot of maintenance sometimes
like between turns you have to move tokens around or shuffle decks of cards
or or you have turns that require lots of different stages
or whatever it can become a lot to think about and for some people that really
kind of kills the fun that that kind of high maintenance
makes it not really feel like a game anymore and it feels more like work.
For other people that's like that's the fun part the fun part is the maintenance
is the the moving of different tokens or the removing of elements or the
shuffling of decks or whatever it is that's the fun part that's the computation
kind of programming your your obstacles that's why it's a game
and this is true in role playing games as well the most popular role playing
game in the world and the first one the one that started the the the whole idea
of it is Dungeons and Dragons and it's it's main
player hand like the book that you have to buy in order to play the game
is something like 250 pages long so that's um 314 or so pages long
that's that's a lot of pages and of course not every single page has a new rule on it it's not
it's not necessarily 314 rules to remember but there is a there there's a lot in here
providing context about how the game is played
and what happens under certain situations and what certain terms mean in context of the game
and what kind of abilities you can choose from and so on so that's that's a lot of rules you could
call this a fairly rules heavy game and of course the intent isn't for you to know all all of the
rules when you start playing the the idea is that you can play with basically the the one rule
over writing rule which is roll a 20-sided die adds add add some kind of bonus to it based on
on your character and if you if you hit a certain number then you succeed and if you failed to
get that get that number or greater you you fail that's it that's that's the game it's it's a
kin to flipping a coin and choosing heads or tails except instead of flipping a coin you're rolling
a die and adding some numbers to it and that's that's the main thing that you need to know once
you know that you can start playing D&D and if that was the only rule that you took away from
from D&D then you would have sort of created a subset of D&D that is particularly rules light
because you would only have that one rule and there are games that champion themselves for being
light on their rules now to be fair as I as I say this Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder and
Starfiend and all these other rules heavy games even shadow run to be fair if you condense the
rules down without all of the contextual text kind of explaining what the rule means and and
maybe adding some some some some flavor to the to the game world if you condensed it all down you'd
probably only have about five or ten pages of rules and you can do that and they do that I mean
they have dungeon master screens which are usually about I don't know four panels of of
approximately letter sized pages you know so four pages with a bunch of rule summaries written
on them so that a dungeon master can kind of prop that up on the table in front of them as they're
playing the game and refer to just these quick summaries of of the rules and that is very useful
and it does show I think it demonstrates that even though we're looking at a 300 page book if you
condense it down into just the stuff just the facts into the almost the pseudo code of that game
then it's not anywhere near 300 pages so that's a good thing but it's still considered a rules
heavy system because there are other games out there that are literally distributed on one page
or two pages like front and back and that's it so there can be really really rules light games
and of course such as that it's the nature of humans you don't really need to use any of these
systems you can as I've already said literally just flip a coin if you want if you want to play a
pretend storytelling game with a bunch of friends and you decide well what we'll do is anytime
that the the imaginary characters that we talk about together anytime that there's a a conflict
of interest or a a conflict of well I guess that would be a conflict of interest whether it's
between us the players or our characters and some imaginary element in the world will flip a coin
will assign a value to the heads and the tails and we'll do whatever the coin tells us to do so if
we come up to a river and we want to cross that river there's no bridge we'll we'll say if its
heads will swim if its tails will try to find a route around the river by just going heading north
and looking for a bridge and so you flip the coin and you do whatever it tells you to do then once
you're in if if you've got heads and you're swimming well maybe someone has the idea that there's a
monster in the water and it's going to attack your character now you need to decide whether you
fight back successfully or not you flip a coin and so on so it can be very rules light doesn't
need to be a big deal but conflict I think in in this question of whether you want lots of rules
or next to no rules is well a couple of things first of all whether or not you like rules like some
people like the rules that's the code of the game quite literally and and that's the part of the
game that makes the experience fun for them I'm one of those people I quite like rules I really
enjoy processing them I enjoy seeing what happens when different situations invoke several rules
and you have to figure out what in that situation would actually sort of take precedence and so on
so I I enjoy that that's part of the fun for me now there's all there's also I mean for some
people I should say that's not the fun part right that that feels like homework it feels like labor
it is not fun it is something that you have to work at and it just takes away from the fun part which
is maybe chatting and laughing and having fun with your friends so I understand why people would
not like rules aside from rules though there is that element of other humans that you're playing a
game with and I'm gonna call this element trust so if you play role playing games in tabletop games
just with friends with like really good friends then you probably maybe let's say probably for now
you probably have a high level of trust in those friends and I'm I'm using trust it meaning it's
sort of in a very broad sense you have trust in them that they are going to work as hard as you
are working to to both have fun and to ensure that your that that everyone else at the table is
having fun so that's that's kind of the expectation among friends we we got together this evening
to play this game and everyone here should be having as much fun as anyone else and we're all
going to try to ensure that that happens and I'm sure that I mean I hope you've been in that
situation before where you're just with a bunch of trusted pals and everyone is concerned about
everyone else making sure that everyone's having fun if they don't like the drinks that they got
you make sure that they get a drink that they like if they don't like the game that you're playing
you make sure that the next game you play they they they really really enjoy they get to choose the
next one or whatever the situation might be whatever it may be there's just that sense of trust
for one another that everyone has everyone else's best interests in mind and if you don't have that
then in theory it could be a lot less fun because now you've got people sort of almost working against
each other potentially and that's not fun um although that is part of a game traditionally speaking
in a game there is that um well there's a competitive spirit there is the game the the game part
the game is a funny word I'm I'm discovering because we could just say well we're playing a game
meaning well we're doing a fun activity and that's the game we're doing a fun activity to other people
game that term it means we are doing an activity that we find nominally fun and we are both very very
invested in who wins and who loses and that's a very kind of that's a different kind of game right
I mean there's playing a game and then there's playing a game almost a sport almost so game is a
funny word but but this this idea that that people at the table are not only having fun but also
sort of they're being competitive that is an important element of gameplay like for it to be a game
there has to be stakes someone must be able to win or lose and indungeons and dragons and
mini tabletop role-playing games well in most all I would almost say all role-playing games um
that that there's this weird turn of events where it's a cooperative game so you're not actually
playing against the other people at the table and some people find that very hard to understand
as to why you would gather and play a game in which you're not playing against each other you're
playing together to win some sort of imaginary obstacle or to conquer some imaginary obstacle
so there's not really that sense of winning and losing in a role-playing game although there is as
well there's there is the imaginary obstacle that you've chosen to try to defeat but you're not
being competitive towards one another but the competitive spirit that is the generation of
it being a game with highest stakes and risks and that sort of thing is an important element
of role-playing so I've got in my head sort of one of those triangle logic things of where you've
got the three nodes and you can choose any two of them so the nodes are rules trust and competition
and I think when considering whether you I don't know prefer or whether you would like to try or
whether the game that you should take to to your friends would be rules light or rules heavy
I think that you can choose two of these things so for instance if you are quite into rules
such as I am then you're going to find yourself in a situation where you can choose to play with
people that you trust in which case you're not going to really need to force competition you
got people who you trust and you've got a book of rules that essentially create competition because
there are a bunch of rules there and everyone trusts one another and so they they they feel
confident that we're all going to make sure that this game is fun for everyone else we don't need
to impose competition according to a book because that sense of risk and of struggle and ultimately
hopefully success is going to come from the players and the game master themselves they're going to
generate the game-iness of this experience by following the rules that we've decided so you
can take your rules and you can play with people you trust and you don't have to worry so much
about whether there's a game being generated you just you you have that taken care of between
rules and trust on the other hand maybe you're taking your rules heavy system to a convention
and you're playing with complete strangers you've never met before you don't particularly trust
them you don't know why they're here other than they want they say they want to play this rules
heavy game so you can't necessarily necessarily rely on them to make this an enjoyable experience
for you you're going to have to lean on the rules and on the the the game system itself to ensure
that there is a game there that there is conflict enough conflict for the players to have to work
at at six to to to work for their success enough competition for the game master to enjoy
running the game that the monsters are going to be well-defined and they're going to have tactics
described and exciting abilities and things like that so the game master isn't going to get bored or
just feel like they're a they're a machine just doling out the the text of the game so you have
your rules and your your your competition and and you don't need the trust because should anyone
I don't know try to game the system and cheat I guess gaming the system and cheating aren't
necessarily the same thing anyway if someone tries to cheat it's not going to be like a problem really
because you have the rules right there and they're going to tell you that no you can't do that
and by the same token if someone's just sitting there not really interacting it doesn't matter
because you've got everything laid out you've got competition sort of baked into your gaming
system so that's that's everything descending from the rules node I guess in a rules heavy system
so now let's look at what would happen if you got rid of that rules node so you're you're going to
play a rules light system meaning that you're left with trust and competition meaning that in order
to have an enjoyable experience I think this is my opinion I guess but my logic is that in order to
have a fun experience with rules light you need you need those two other nodes you need trust
and competition you need to trust the people you're playing with that they're going to make
this experience fun for you and that you're going to make this experience fun for them and that
there's the competitive spirit present to some degree and I know that rules light I think a lot of
people who enjoy rules light actually one of the things that they associate I think with rules is
sort of a negative competitiveness and so the word competitive here is is a little bit awkward
but essentially I just mean there there once again needs to be some kind of of positive in-game
conflict to make this more than a bunch of imaginary characters just sitting around their living room
sleeping like there there needs to be something happening in the game world to make it some kind of
game like to to there there needs to be a purpose to this scenario and as long as you trust the
people that you're playing with and someone's got a good idea of what's going to stand in the way
of the of the game characters to create conflict or competition or whatever then you'll do
fine with rules because when something comes up that isn't defined in your your your your the
couple of rules that you're using then you trust each other to make honest and earnest calls that
both that that that make the game fun but possibly also ties into that that conflict again it's
the difference between for instance saying that your character has to go into an office and try to
uncover some recover some secret classified information so your character's in there
rooting around in the in the desk and a secretary returns from his lunch break outside in the
outer office now in a rules heavy system there'd be some there'd be some check to negotiate
whether that secretary hears your character rummaging around in the in the inner office and the
the results of that die roll would determine exactly what happens next or maybe not exactly what
happens next that's what the game master would be for but but certainly it would determine whether
the secretary detects your character or not in rules light though you've got people you can trust
and you got people who are going to keep the game a game and so rather than doing a die roll someone
whether it's the game master or just another player kind of depends on what kind of system you're
playing someone decides that the secretary does hear you now first of all if you don't trust your
your your your fellow players or your your game master then that seems very arbitrary and sort of
like a little bit of a betrayal right I mean why did the secretary hear surely the secretary is
distracted right now there's phones ringing and and he just came back with his coffee he's
concentrating on his coffee like any sane person would oblivious to the rest of the world so
obviously in your mind the secretary would not have heard it heard you so the trust factor
is important here because that means that even though the secretary heard you you trust that your
players have a good or that your game master somebody has a good reason for deciding that the
secretary has detect and that good reason according to my little triangle logic here is the
competitive spirit and that is to to to make sure that there's just enough conflict to make
this a fun experience and so not only has the secretary heard you with a good group that you
trust and who has a competitive spirit not only has the secretary heard has heard you but by some
unlikely chance it happens that today was the day that the district manager was going to stop by
and check out the operations here so the secretary walks in mistakes you for the district manager
who is imminently going to arrive and inspect the facility hands you a coffee and a super nice to
you and tries to get you to come to the the meeting room for the important one o'clock meeting and
boy now you're in a pickle because now you're impersonating the district manager you still need to
get that classified information back in the other office and everyone's being super nice to you and
is trying to make sure that you give them high marks on their review so that would be for instance a
way of i mean that's probably went on with that example a little bit longer than necessary but
but the the idea here is that you can rely on your players on your fellow players to make up for
things that just aren't in the rules and even even in in what you might think are our violations
of of fairness things that you think are not fair in the end it becomes totally worth it and
that that's an important thing to to keep in mind i think because there is there's another way
without this triangle of logic um there's a way of just looking at this and and saying rules light
rules heavy rules light rules heavy let's do rules like because that seems really easy and rules
heavy seems like homework which is a fair call like that's totally fair if that's the way you feel
or you may apparently think you might you might like rules heavy games normally but you might think
well i don't have a whole lot of time to prep for this game or you know these people haven't really
played a lot of role-playing games so i should just choose something rules light to keep it simple
and you might think that's a very reasonable call to make and it might be but you do have to
realize that if you're foregoing the rules then you do need to have that trust in that competitive
sensibility or else things may not go as expected people might call you out on a certain ruling or
whatever or you may you may find problems with the way that someone's playing the game maybe they're
they're taking advantage of a situation or whatever and that's that's it that's rules light rules
heavy i'll tell you how i i sort of i i got a little bit anti-rules light for a while i mean
i guess deep down i still am if i'm honest um but there was a a game that i was playing with someone
or with a bunch of people and the game master was new to me and he he had this game that he was
playing that was said to be rules light i guess it was i mean there there there's lighter but he had a
fairly light system that he was playing and i had attacked a monster my character attacked a monster
with a shotgun uh my character with a shotgun had attacked a monster the monster didn't have a
shotgun shot it in the face or whatever and it had apparently no effect on the monster whatsoever
now granted if it's part of the lore of that world that shotguns don't hurt these monsters i can
accept that but that wasn't the case or if it was there wasn't a ruling about that and as far as
i could tell it was simply an arbitrary is it convenient for that shotgun to have slowed down
the mountain that the monster right now or is the monster going to continue doing the action that
the game master wanted it to go through to do anyway and there wasn't really any way to tell
i didn't know the game master enough to know whether it was simply inconvenient for a shotgun to have
his monster at that point or whether there was something about the world that dictated that the
shotgun had no effect and so all i really had i was losing two nodes right i i had no rules and
i had no trust so all i had was this competitive edge that i was feeling like there's conflict
right here in the game and and this needs to be solved i shot a gun at it and and it didn't work
and that was pretty frustrating so i think that rules light can be really really fun but it can
also be very very dangerous without those two other nodes just as a rules heavy game can be out
of place sometimes in certain settings with with the wrong people so it depends on situational
factors and preferences and things like that just keep in mind the the different elements at play
because it's very frequently not as simple as this has too many rules or this doesn't have enough
rules there's i guess a bigger context to consider outside of this thing and as i've said already but
we'll say again here you are invited to the hacker public radio rpg club if you've never played a
role playing game and want to try then you are welcome to play with us you are at a distinct
advantage in a way by playing with the hpr rpg club because we are switching out the game every month
so everyone in the group becomes a complete newbie once once every 30 days or or they're about
so if you've never played then this is a great opportunity to get in where where everyone at
the table is equally as mystified as you will be and certainly i think a lot of us are very very
eager to teach and help other people discover this really fun hobby so you are certainly certainly
welcome anytime you want um subscribe to the hacker public mailing list for updates on when the
next game is going to be it's a fairly low traffic mailing list and i just post my notifications
there for now thanks for listening talk to you next time
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