Reply To: Dumbing Down RPG's

[kiranamida 5791xp 1]

You see, me and my group is completely the opposite.

We trend to things like D&D 5e, Fate or Malifaux: Through the Breech that have a hard emphasis on “these are examples and here is also rules to make your own”. All of these systems have almost plug and play elements to their rules allowing you to invent your own little bits to stick into the existing framework.

I find that a lot of examples of “wouldn’t it be more interesting if I could do X but I can’t” it tends to be a unimaginative GM/player group that’s preventing it from being so.

Is it a problem that most of this is often hidden away in the secretive tome of the systems Game Master Guide? Yes, a poor editing choice on the part of many systems as it takes it away from the player in a way that just doesn’t make sense of you want to encourage it’s application.

Besides, you can do an awful lot with the roleplay if you explore the why of your character is what they are. If all you want to do is rollplay then yeah: you’ll never get beyond the simplest application of the game’s numbers.

If anything I would argue that the biggest weakness of modern RPGs is the tendency to take a good system and tie it to a specific setting/lore rather than the days of buying the smaller core rules at a lower cost and then choosing your source book like Modern D20 or Savage Worlds.