Indie RPGs Are Too Restrictive

Tyler Provick

Tyler Provick is a writer and a gamer that likes to combine his two interests and share them with the community.

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3 responses

  1. Penemue says:

    I love rules. I love them to death. I can’t stand games like Wushu and the myriad Cortex games (Leverage, etc.). It’s the tyranny of freedom: when I play an RPG, I want to play a character exploring a world and reacting to it. I can’t do that if I have an unrealistic amount of control over that world.

    That said, I think your comments apply chiefly to people who are primarily interested in combat. I ran a supernatural mystery RPG for years, and players had the option of using combat to resolve their issues – or not – in almost every situation. In fact, when they had no choice, the option was usually only the research/social one, not the combat one. Rules were still important, but they could influence a wide variety of things (the difficulty of physical tasks, avenues for research, puzzle games, etc.) rather than focusing on chiefly combat. The rules for fighting were -there-, but they weren’t why we played in that particular system.

    • Based on this and other comments I think I may not have done a good job explaining my point. I want rules which give me combat rules and nothing else not because I’m only interested in combat. I only need rules for combat, the rest will come through gameplay. I’d rather advice in a GM section on how to structure a session than actual session structure mechanics.

      • Penemue says:

        I agree with you one hundred percent on that last bit. Too many GM books don’t spend enough time discussing session/adventure structure.

        I would prefer to have mechanics for more than just combat, though. Sure, most players aren’t actually combatants in real life and so some level of abstraction is required, but the same is true if a shy player plays a loquacious con-artist. Both of these skillsets require challenges that could benefit from some level of mechanical resolution – and more than just “make your Diplomacy roll.”

        (One of the few things I liked about D&D 4th was the Rogue’s ability to reroll failed bluff, if that ability was taken. That’s neat.)

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