Rules Lite vs. Rules Heavy

Today I'm going to talk about the differences between a rules lite RPG vs. a rules heavy RPG. The reason for this is to highlight a very important way that Ample gets played that differs from many mainstream RPGs such as D&D.

In a rules heavy game, character generation produces a complex, detailed list of abilities, skills and capabilities. During play, all a character needs to do when considering their chances of success in a particular pursuit is to look down at their sheet. Many nuances of their character are nutted out in stat form, leaving little to misinterpretation. You have a definitive list of skills that tells a player exactly what that character is capable of. This allows a player and GM to know very precisely what a character can and can't do. The downside to rules heavy characters, for me at least, is that you end up with pages and pages of statistics and points that become easily forgotten, easily looked over. A player needs to constantly refer to their sheet to get an idea of what that character has. Bonuses, penalties and other modifiers from difference sources become forgotten. The game becomes more of a maths exercise than a story telling session.

Rules lite attempts to strip back a character to it's bare bones. Trimming the fat, if you will. The appeal that many old school gamers find with the older editions of D&D is that there were so few rules. The idea was that you had a character, with basic stats, and the rest was implied in your Character Concept. You made a story and this was your character; more than the collection of dots or numbers on a sheet. Sure, you can have a story about your rules heavy character too, but more often than not that story needs to follow what the points say on the sheet, not the other way around.

This, above all else, is what we want in a game of Ample. With 4 basic Attributes, and 9 Core Skills that encompass any number of skill and attribute combinations we can cover pretty much every action imaginable that a character may attempt. The rest is pure story. As we talked about in the Character Concept post, a skill can be expanded upon through tying it to the characters background. So a character has 3 points in the Communication Skill? How did they get so good at communicating? What role did their background or upbringing have in gaining this level of expertise? Did they go through some trial or hardship to gain these skills? Did they spend long hours and nights studying and practicing? These questions tell a story, and they add flavour to a character that can be used during play.

Lets say that the character earned their Communications Skill 3 by being a salesman, an up and coming sales rep of a successful company before the zombie apocalypse occurred. During play the GM knows that this character is comfortable convincing people to see their way of thinking; they're great at talking to small groups of people. Lets take that same character and face them off against a large crowd. Even though the character has an excellent Communications Skill, they've never had to do public speaking like this before. The GM is well within their rights to make this kind of encounter very difficult for the character. On the other hand, the player can mention that their character regularly had to give sales reports to a board of directors, or at the very least a whole department. Already this gives us more story and more character information that we can use. Perhaps the character has a decent foundation of leadership potential to build upon, something highly valued in a post apocalyptic world looking to rebuild society.

These concepts can still be applied to a rules heavy game, but by their very nature the rigidity of a character prevents embellishments that are not supported by character generation or development.

House Moving

Just an update for you all, I've recently moved house and we don't yet have the net connected. The blog is still running and we're still working on Ample and on schedule for an October release :)

Stay tuned, folks!

Preview Live on RPGNow.com!

The Ample RPG is now live on the store, so head on over and pick it up, already!!
GO!!

Click here, now!!

Latest changes

Change Log 19 Aug 14

• Changed the Moving in Combat section of the Combat Chapter; new artwork, better explanation (read – simpler)
• Defined the ranges more solidly; 5, 15, 50 and 50+ metres respectively.
• Removed old warehouse line art Diagram for Movement, replaced with lush colour Diagram using tokens for VTT
• Re-worked Critical Success mechanic; Crit Success is performed on a roll of a 4, as opposed to maximum die roll, and maximum amount of re-rolls possible reduced by 1 per die.
• Critical Successes achieved with different die types now only apply to the lowest die rolled, not the highest; EG a d6 and d8 both rolling a Crit Success will only apply to the d6.
• Modified the way First Aid and Healing works; this was more just a clean up of terms and clarifying that it requires a Primary Action to perform.
• Minor grammatical fixes and typos

The biggest change this version is the Diagram for Movement, we thought that the colour image of the orcs and PC suited our needs better, and better illustrated what we we thinking about when we wrote the movement rules. Also, this version has now been Optimized and had Preflight checks completed and is ready for fast web view.

The Preview version of the Basic Rules Book is also ready for release, and will be uploaded to RPGNow shortly :)

Character Generation Systems

Anyone who’s played multiple RPGs knows that Character Generation is first area that players and GMs alike need to get right. Each system, regardless of similarities with other systems, handles the process in a number of ways. Each way has merits and flaws, and end up tailoring to different play styles even if that is not their intent.

When I go through the Char Gen sections of a new game (or an old one I haven’t played before), I always notice certain things about them, and this post is an attempt to categorise or at least detail the various methods and where they tend to take me. You mileage may vary, of course, and that in no way reduces the value of your opinion on different games, but I hope that this post can help shed some light on the most important aspect of a game’s introduction to a new group.

Random Generation:

Systems that completely randomise character generation are fun to look at. They a usually filled with tables and charts full of data and story ideas for a character. We’re not talking about simply randomising ability scores, but the majority of the thing. Such an example is Traveller (and all it’s incarnations). You are given a few choices on where you’d like to roll, but then you must also roll to see if you are ALLOWED to roll in this section, if not your choices get even more limited.  This arbitrary way of generating a character has the benefit of assisting players coming up with the concept of their characters, but this concept must be tailored to the results of the rolls that you made previously.

This method tends to appeal more to the ‘simulationist’ player than the ‘story driven’ player, as you seldom end up with a character that you created from the ground up; the dice did that instead. It is one of the fairest systems, in concept, but has the potential to create truly unplayable characters, and is hard for a player to in end up with a character they look forward to playing. You wanted to play a dashing space pilot who’s handy with a blaster? Too bad, you got the ship’s cook who no one gets along with and has trouble with an old war wound. I say fair in concept, because it’s also possible to end up with characters on both ends of the spectrum; a really skilled and capable character who outshines a useless, flawed character with little in the way of capability despite that fact that both players had an equal opportunity to create either.

This kind of challenge can appeal to some players, however I’ve found that these game systems don’t tend to support play styles that focuses on roleplaying. What I mean by that is that there are seldom rewards for playing a character well, rather they award XP for defeating enemies or overcoming obstacles. This might not be the case with all systems that use this method, just that most of them that I’ve encountered do.

Hybrid Generation:

This system is one of the most common, and well known. You have random elements for some aspects of character generation, and ‘points’ to spend or selections to make that everyone gets the same amount of. Dungeons & Dragons is well known for this, although you can use a point generation systems completely if you so choose, early editions espoused random ability scores and a selection of classes, non-weapon proficiencies, feats and skills, depending on the version. Many of the OSR clones and d20 based games follow this method, but it’s not without its flaws as well. What is IS good for, is versatility. While it’s still possible to end up with a character that is no good at what they’re supposed to do, at least you are playing something that you wanted. You may be a space pilot who has a blaster, but you can’t fly for shit and couldn’t hit Jabba the Hutt’s arse if you were standing right next to him. But you still look good in Corellian Bloodstripes.

Where this system can go wrong is similar to the Random Generation method, but to a lesser extent. These kinds of games tend to support different roles in tactical situations, but a poorly rolled character who is meant to fill a role can’t do it effectively and the rest of the party will be left struggling because of that deficiency. Once again, this can be more of a roleplaying challenge that actually improves play for some groups, but these systems still seem to prefer rewarding encounter defeat and monster slaying as the source of character advancement, with a side note or two for good roleplaying.

This method is perhaps the most widely used system, simply due to it being able to appeal to most types of gamers.

Point Buy Generation:

This method is perhaps the fairest system of all. Everyone gets an equal number of ‘points’ or choices to make, and they build their characters from available options by spending these points. This method allows for the greatest weight to be placed on character concept, as in a player can have a solid idea about what kind of character they wish to play before any pencils touch the character sheet. Personally, I like this method the most as you can create nearly any type of character you want with a little imagination and a good understanding of what your choices mean. But therein lies the crux of this system; consequences of choice.

Too often I’ve seen players build a character they’re excited to play, but realise quickly they’ve built a ‘broken’ character that neither does what they hoped for, nor offers any realistic options for advancement that appeals to them. The players MUST have a good understanding about what their choices will mean for their characters, not only at generation, but during play and in the future. Many abilities or powers may rely on attributes, and if the intrinsic connection between them isn’t fully understood the end result is often a misunderstood character. On the other side of the coin, this system also allows the most advantages to Min-Max players, who can ‘work the system’ to their advantage. It is often hard enough creating a well-balanced character, but there is plenty of risk of abusing the system as well. This is especially the case for imbalanced game systems, which unfortunately many of the systems that use this method tend to be.

Some examples for this style are the World of Darkness series and Shadowrun.

Story-Driven Generation:

Similar to the Point Buy method, this style focuses more on the ‘character’ rather than the ‘statistics’ of the character. A character concept is usually required to start the process, and the rest of the choices usually become logical conclusions to this concept. Monte Cook’s Numenera is a solid example of this system. Sure, you get some points to build attributes, you pick some powers etc, but in the beginning almost all characters are fairly evenly powered in capability and skill level. More importantly there’s already a connection between the characters and the game world built into the generation process.

This system rarely appeals to players who enjoy tactical gaming, the simulationist, but is very appealing to players who enjoy roleplaying their characters as opposed to squashing enemies for XP. These systems tend to focus on story progression as a means for character advancement, and the capability of a character takes second stage.

The drawback of this system is that it’s more tailored to suite a certain style of play, rather than allowing for different styles as needed (or preferred). Starting characters may not be as specialised as some players like, and see relatively low powered characters to be mediocre at best. Players who see progress as gaining character levels instead of deepening of a plot may find this style of game to be uninteresting.

Archetype Generation:

I call this one Archetype Generation because it involves players simply selecting a pre-built character from a number of choices. This system is used for board games, one shot adventures or very ‘rules-lite’ games, where pretty much the only choice a player makes besides selecting a character is the toon’s name. This systems is very fast, gives the GM a solid idea about the capabilities of the characters, and means that relatively inexperienced players and GMs can get right into the game without spending half a day going over player’s options and builds. A GM can pre-generate characters using any of the other systems and present them to players as choices, rather than go through the full character generation process.

As mentioned, this system takes away the creative spark from the players. It can be difficult to ‘bond’ with a character that you did not envision, or spend hours pouring over tomes and rules books to generate. For one-shots, or board games, this is not so much a problem but if the game is meant to be played over prolonged periods of time this system can kill it faster than a red dragon.

This list is by no means exhaustive, and is in no way a definitive guide to character generation, but I hope it highlights for some how the different systems can support different play styles more effectively. 

Project SARPS entering next production phase!

Project SARPS is entering the next production phase, that of presentation and 'beautification'. We've gotten a new round of changes added, mostly to do with balancing and correcting of errors. Focus now is on getting the 'Preview' ready for release, and adding the final pages to the Campaign Setting being released with the full product.

As you can see from the logo above, we've gone back to the original name for SARPS: Ample.

We feel the name reflects the aspect of the system we like the most - that it's enough rules to run a full game; it's Ample. The main rule book is labelled Basic Rules Book, and is the core manual required to play the game, although future products may incorporate the Basic Rules Book into setting, are fans can. We're pretty happy with the logo, in fact I'm pretty chuffed, myself.

Anyway, enough patting myself on the back. Whats new? Read on, peeps:

Change Log

This version has some key changes, after some careful consideration and play testing. The most significant changes are in the Wealth System and Combat.

Wealth

• A more detailed description of the system
• A way to track purchases and have it affect the Wealth Advantage temporarily as players spend cash/gold
• A fleshed out processes for raising and lowering the Advantage, giving GMs more insight into when players should have the Advantage improve or when it should decrease
• Introducing Availability; players may also need to be able to locate an item, using the Region Advantage, in order to be able to purchase it
• Availability is added to the number of successes required to Craft an item
• Zero Cost items; how a player can purchase an item with a Cost of 0
• Players can now make a Wealth Advantage check using a d4 if they have do not have any points in the Wealth Advantage

Combat

• Active Defence has been changed to make it a little bit more balanced in the Attacker’s favour. Previously a Defender of mediocre skill and light armour could hold off several attackers at once with little or no threat of damage
• Block and Dodge now add to the amount of Slides an Attacker receives, aside from Armour and Cover. They no longer provide Chokes like other opposed Skill checks
• Taking into account the changes to defence, when an Attacker selects a target, the Defender first makes all Defence checks before the Attacker makes their attack roll. This is so the number of Slides the Attacker suffers is calculated beforehand.
• Dual Wielding has been rewritten. An off-hand weapon makes separate attacks, as a Secondary Attack, using full Weapon Skill but suffering a Choke. Using the Block Defence while dual wielding also grants the Fast Trait. If only fighting a single foe, a dual wielding attacker can make a single attack roll and simply add +1 to damage
• Executing an Exploit – this was added in the last version, but it’s been tweaked a little more. Using Skills, a character can outwit, out manoeuvre, or just play dirty and gain Bumps for their attacks. This can be done as part of an Attack (and hence Primary Action), or passed along to an ally as a Secondary Action. Exploits are very circumstantial actions that need to be narrated or at the very least explained to the GMs approval. Some actions, such as Burst Fire and Aiming (see below), expose a character long enough for other attackers to be able to attempt to Execute an Exploit against them
• Added Aiming. By exposing yourself from cover for longer, you can negate the effects of cover on your target. This is a Tertiary Action that, as written above, allows others to take advantage of if they can and make Execute an Exploit Actions
• Shields add 1 Slide to Armour, for all Attributes. This is a passive bonus.

General

• Crafting difficulties increase by the Availability of an item
• More ideas for modifying a game setting, such as Origins and Advantages, Equipment tweaks and simplification.
• Advice on when to award Bumps to players
• New Character Sheet, based on the mock up made for the Atlas City Almanac Game Setting for Ample. UPDATED – Character sheet reverted to previous version for now, software is playing silly buggers.

And that’s it for this version! There may be a few more minor tweaks I missed, but that’s

about the gist of it. New versions will be sent out shortly to all play test groups. Once again, if anyone is looking to play test a great new gaming system then send us an email or private message with your contact details and we’ll send you a copy!

SARPS Preview

Production has started on a free preview version of the Setting Agnostic Role Playing System. Using a stripped back version of the rules (if that were possible!) and simplified combat, we've nutted out an adventure idea with pre-generated characters to whet the preverbial whistle of interested parties. 

The setting takes place in a fairly standard fantasy world, with the players taking the role of a Warrior, an Assassin, a Priest and a Wizard who all have a personal vendetta in taking down several bad guys holed up in the fortress city of Cahr Mordain. With each character comes an objective, defeat their nemesis and the help the others defeat theirs. For each personal nemesis slain, a boost the Advantages of the characters enhances their abilities.

There is no advancement rules, but certain milestones in the adventure offer ways to increase the powers of the characters in order to simulate advancement, but true statistical advancement through the use of experience points is being saved for the full SARPS rules.

Offering well over a dozen monsters and NPCs, each with unique Advantages to showcase the flexibility of the Advantage system, there is plenty of stock material to pique the interest of the players and GM alike. Full colour maps of the dungeons, sewers and various hold outs of the nemeses for the characters fill out the content nicely.

The product is expected to be released as a free download, possibly with a built in code offering a discount on the full SARPS Basic Rules when it is released. Now, to finish the artwork....