In recent years the obsession with better and better graphics in video games has hit a bit of a wall. The more prominent games have been the ones with in depth stories, like the Fallouts, Skyrim, Mass Effect and even the traditional shooters attempt to have rich campaigns. It seems now a days a game needs that captivating story in order to succeed and in a lot of cases it takes precedent over other aspects of the game. This is even more important in your table top games.
Many RPG systems out there have a lot of rules and GM's and players alike can find themselves bogged down and restricted. This however doesn't have to be the case. Lets take a quick look at D&D 4E for a moment. In each round of an encounter the players can each take a Standard Action, a Movement Action, a Minor action and some Free Actions. This works well for the tactical game play that 4E wanted but what if your players want to try something a little different one round?
Lets say, as a player I wanted to run up to a table, jump onto and leap off grabbing the chandelier on the ceiling swinging across the room and plant my heel into the bandits face near the door.
This would require a Move Action to get to the table, a Free Action to get onto the table, an acrobatics roll to swing on the chandelier which is a Standard Action and then some kind of attack which would be another Standard Action, not to mention by the rules this would probably be an unarmed melee attack, which is going to be less than useful.
So to do this pretty awesome thing I would either have to take two turns or use an action point all to achieve a payoff that within the rules would not be worth it at all. That isn't fun, so as a DM you should rectify this. Instead of having your players try and figure out how to fit out-of-the-box actions like that into the rules just have them describe what they want to do and then you can work it the best you can. For example, just have the player move to the table, make a acrobatics test and then let them use an attack which makes sense and don't worry about what the rules say.
This way the player will have a much better time and that is better for everyone. My point here is that just because the rules say one thing it doesn't mean you can't adapt them when it is needed. That is true when you are playing any game. My example was of just one action in a fight but whatever the situation is you shouldn't let the mechanics of the game get in the way of telling your story and having fun with it. Your playing a Role Playing Game after all, the Role Playing should take precedent with the rules working as guidelines to resolve situations that arise.
Many RPG systems out there have a lot of rules and GM's and players alike can find themselves bogged down and restricted. This however doesn't have to be the case. Lets take a quick look at D&D 4E for a moment. In each round of an encounter the players can each take a Standard Action, a Movement Action, a Minor action and some Free Actions. This works well for the tactical game play that 4E wanted but what if your players want to try something a little different one round?
Lets say, as a player I wanted to run up to a table, jump onto and leap off grabbing the chandelier on the ceiling swinging across the room and plant my heel into the bandits face near the door.
This would require a Move Action to get to the table, a Free Action to get onto the table, an acrobatics roll to swing on the chandelier which is a Standard Action and then some kind of attack which would be another Standard Action, not to mention by the rules this would probably be an unarmed melee attack, which is going to be less than useful.
So to do this pretty awesome thing I would either have to take two turns or use an action point all to achieve a payoff that within the rules would not be worth it at all. That isn't fun, so as a DM you should rectify this. Instead of having your players try and figure out how to fit out-of-the-box actions like that into the rules just have them describe what they want to do and then you can work it the best you can. For example, just have the player move to the table, make a acrobatics test and then let them use an attack which makes sense and don't worry about what the rules say.
This way the player will have a much better time and that is better for everyone. My point here is that just because the rules say one thing it doesn't mean you can't adapt them when it is needed. That is true when you are playing any game. My example was of just one action in a fight but whatever the situation is you shouldn't let the mechanics of the game get in the way of telling your story and having fun with it. Your playing a Role Playing Game after all, the Role Playing should take precedent with the rules working as guidelines to resolve situations that arise.
