Overcome #RPGaDAY2025

 Overcome rule ...YES

From the beginning of my years as a DM, my relationship with the rules was complicated, mainly because when I was a teenager, the third edition rules seemed very complicated to me. I only began to understand certain aspects thanks to “Never Winter Nights.” Especially about the spell slot system, which I honestly don't even understand because it was so difficult for me to grasp. Back then, the blocks of text in the player's manuals seemed more intimidating to me than they do now. And I think the reason I don't worry about it now is because I'm simply  was no longer interested in the fundamental part that plays the rules in a rpg session. 

It sounds extreme, like many of my opinions, but at the end of the day, what I want to convey is that when we get together to play with our friends, I prefer to take a relaxed attitude towards everything, because what we are doing is getting together to PLAY, that's what we're doing at the end of the day...PLAYING A GAME!

So yes, it was liberating to overcome the rules of a system that was functional in a big part, but with a big quantity of unnecessary crunch.   With the third edition, there was too much going on. The language of the book wasn't my native tongue, and if I had difficulties, the people I was playing with didn't understand a damn thing about the mechanics. To really play role-playing games, do you need to become a law student? Since those years, I've been feeling that discomfort, which is so strong that I immediately lose interest in any role-playing book or adventure that exceeds 80 pages.

In that sense, the types of games available on itch.io feel good, but they didn't add much to my experience when I discovered them, since my liberation from heavy walls had happened a decade earlier.

The confrontation with the rules went at the pace of my different players. If they got bored counting the weight of the backpack and keeping a precise count of the arrows, that was left aside. If they got confused about vertical and horizontal movement, it was left out. If they didn't understand how spell slots worked, okay... then they weren't used, and that was that... although this last part was eventually adapted in the fifth edition, where it was easier for me to stop using certain rules.

In my games, initiative numbers don't matter. In my mind, the balance is clearly on the players' side, and things move quickly, although I often feel the frustration of some players with the rules... Why the hell are we using this? There's Microlite 20 or 74... so many different OSRs... why the hell continue with this?

In general, I think most of my players wouldn't have a problem with this, but there are always a couple who get obsessed with the rules and try to give them weight and importance at the table, which I take into account from time to time, but inside I feel annoyed. Who do they think they are? Imposing rules on my absurd game of dragons and red gnomes!

F!!