How Many Rules Do You Like in Your Game?

When I run or play a roleplaying game, I look for a system / game engine that is simple, fast, and easy to use. The system shouldn't take over the game, shouldn't require hours of real time to resolve what should only be seconds of game time. The system should support and emulate whatever genre is appropriate to the game being run. The system should blend into the background and bloody well stay there. It's called a *role playing* game for a reason. The role playing, the product of shared imagination of the GM and players, is what it's about. I think that the rules, the system, should be subordinate to the game you want to play.

Let me say that again: the system should be SUBORDINATE to the game you want to play, not vice versa. The system should be easily modifiable to fit the game you want to play; if it isn't, you're using the wrong system. You should not have to modify your game to fit the *system*. If your character wants to perform an action that makes perfect sense given the genre style of the game, then the rules should support that action. If you're using a generic rules set, then the rules system should be simple enough for the GM to make a good intuitive call. It should NOT require a nightmare of rules jockeying.

I DON'T want a system that is, essentially, a set of rules for a miniatures wargame masquerading as an RPG. I don't want an extensive set of rules for strategy and tactics. Don't get me wrong--I enjoy strategy games, though not to the same extent I enjoy RPGs. I simply want them separate from my role playing game, because in 25 years of gaming I've found that the more complex the system the more it overwhelms the role playing game and turns it into a roll playing game. And I definitely do not want that. In any system worth its salt, the GM can fairly easily assign bonuses to the players' rolls for whatever strategies and tactics the players come up with; while a representative sample list is useful, there is no need for an exhaustive list with rules for every strategic and tactical possibility.

To my way of thinking, the SYSTEM is NOT the GAME. The system is a method of task resolution, and that's it. The GAME is the shared imaginative world, the ongoing adventures and improvised narrative that occurs in play.

And the only reason you need an extremely detailed, complex rules system is because either: (a) you really like playing strategy games / miniatures wargames simultaneous to your RPG session, or (b) because the players don't trust the GM.