The Game is Made of Holes

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The fruitful void, whitespace, rules-lite, et cetera. A set of role-playing rules will often be like a Swiss cheese: Some overarching rules to provide structure, and holes to fill at the table.

When designing a game, you must choose the scope and specificity of the rules. You probably need to (perhaps metaphorically) write down at least one rule for what you're making to be considered a game (though you may convince me otherwise), and conversely, there is a limit to how many rules you can write down if you intend to finish writing within your lifetime.

When then, is the correct amount of rules? Surely this must be a solved problem in the field of game design. The correct answer is of course whatever you think it is. We play game to have fun, or at least some kind of desired experience. If a game provides that without you feeling chafed under the weight of the rulebook, or lost in a big, empty or not very fruitful void, then the game has the right amount of rules for you. This of course, does not mean that this choice is correct for anyone else, but that's fine! If you can't find a compromise, you probably shouldn't play together. We don't need to police others' fun it's not like playing the "wrong" game will give you brain damage. Anyone arguing that some other playstyle than their preferred one is bad, is probably just trying to sell something, drum up controversy, or is just a bit of a jerk not worth listening to.

To take an example making its way around Bluesky recently: If you think that negotiating a situation with the GM is a more exciting way of running stealth than a prescribed procedure? Great! If you would prefer to have a specific mechanic to lean on? Also great!

There is a reasonable criticism to be made of very loose systems, which rely on negotiations ultimately decided by GM fiat rather than predefined procedures as "mother may I". Indeed, they do rely on "asking for permission" from the GM. However, while this certainly impacts the "roustness" of the system, increasing the reliance on a good and reasonable GM, whether this is necessarily a bad thing depends on your group. Don't play a game that doesn't fit your group! If you don't like asking "mother may I?" you  have the supreme power to refuse to play! You can always leave the game if you're not having fun, and perhaps even suggest an alternative. Maybe you can find a compromise game, and maybe you can't, but saying a playstyle is "bad" when others clearly enjoy it a lot is being the fun police. As long as nobody is hurting anyone, trying to police others' fun is loser behaviour. Communicating what you like (or dislike) and why is not a sin, but one should be careful to not imply that other ways to play are "wrong" - once again, loser behaviour.

All games will leave some room for the players at the table to fill out, some games leave more, some games leave less, and which part is filled will depend on the game. Some time ago, I argued that the core Mothership rules are only half the game, the other half being filled by adventure modules. Of course, these need not be published modules, and could also just be adventures whipped together by the group's GM if they enjoy that process: this is filling out a fruitful void, that would otherwise be filled at the table. Comparing to storygames, where the world and story of the characters is often built collaboratively, this fruitful void is pre-filled in a blorbier playstyle. A prepared adventure (whether purchased or written by the GM) can add to the game experience, just as rules can, or equivalently detract, if it is filling out a void that the players prefer to leave open in play.

At one end of the void scale is the entirely rules-free improvisation, where the entirety of the game is there for the players to decide, at the other end is a stage play, where everyone's actions and lines are written in advance and the players just act out their roles. For most of us, the ideal space for role playing games is somewhere in between, but which parts we like to have predefined and which we prefer to leave open for the table to fill is a matter of personal taste.

Whether you like FKR, OSR, Trad, storygames, or some other playstyle that is not as easily captured by a neat little name, play what you enjoy and follow the advice that makes sense to you. You can tune out car driving advice if you always take the train, do the same for games.

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