The Three Rules Rule

tl;dr: More traditional GMs need to start giving themselves designer credits if y'all are doing this much work on someone else's system. Also don't put in that design effort if you're not having fun, it shouldn't be a requirement to GM. Also also, I think part of why Rules-Light is so appealing is because it is so simple that it almost always works right out of the gate and is "Rules-Tight."

Conventional TTRPG wisdom will tell you "If you don't like a rule just change it! That's the magic of TTRPGs!" ((a sentiment that frankly sounds remarkably similar to the much maligned "You can run anything in D&D 5e if you just change up the rules!" or the more video gamey "This game is the best! Just make sure you download these mods!")) This advice isn't as ubiquitous as it sounds and I rarely give it unless it's about adding rules. Especially when it's an ethos used to nullify potential critique that could push the medium forward. Usually when an RPG is giving you a specific suite of tools and mechanics it's doing it for a reason. Those mechanics and rules are meant to harmonize into a sum better than its parts. (If an RPG isn't doing that... Uh... Well let's just say there's more than a few that don't and "dry" is about the kindest thing I can often say about them.) But even when all those mechanics are aimed at the same place, not every TTRPG sticks the landing, and even fewer might land in the sweet-spot you want to run in.

After reading quite a many indie TTRPGs, trad TTRPGs and unsuccessfully trying to get into running Cyberpunk 2020 I've come up with a bit of an antithesis to the "Just change the rules" mantra. A personal promise to myself to keep me focused on the content I'll best enjoy (especially given how time consuming a TTRPG can be to run and play): The "Three Rules Rule". I do want to preface this by saying not everyone has to (or even should) follow this rule. There's a great deal of joy to be found in hacking a game and making it your own. Similarly much like there's video game players who avoid console because they find a lot of joy in modding, similarly there's GMs and players who actively enjoy breaking, fixing and radically modifying TTRPGs! And that's fine! It can be a really gratifying experience! TTRPGs are a genre with such breadth and depth that there's not going to be any one-size-fits all advice. Different people will like different things. 

But if your tastes are like mine, and you really need to be in the right mood/headspace to run/fix something janky here's my advice for all the other times:

The Three Rules Rule: If there are more than 3 functionalities of the TTRPG that I want to change, I should seriously consider either playing a different TTRPG or just making something from scratch.

This isn't to say an TTRPG is necessarily "bad" if I have to play a different one, heck I might even come back to that TTRPG eventually for something else. It's more that it isn't worth my (very limited) time to redesign someone else's system so extensively. I'll be using one of my favorite TTRPGs Cyberpunk 2020 as an example of a game I don't think I'll ever run (or potentially even play in) again as a result of this rule. (Why 2020 is one of my favorites but also a game I have very little interest in actually playing is beyond the scope of this post). Let's break down this process slightly more:

A Moment-to-Moment Tweak is Not a Change

Sometimes a monster needs just a touch more health. Sometimes a magic item needs just one more catch. Sometimes a dungeons needs to be just a room bigger. Sometimes the target for a skill check needs just a few more points. These are not changes to functionality. In fact this a huge part of what being a GM in traditional games can be about, and can be really gratifying to master! Most games are designed for GMs to do minor tweaks, react to players, see what's working and field challenges appropriately. It's adjusting the flavor, but not the recipe. After all saying "This needs just a bit more garlic salt" is different than saying "We need to sub out the onions in this dish."

What is a major change is if one party member can one-shot a boss due to an unintended interaction, and now you're left with the option of drastically inflating that Boss' HP (wherein only one party member will be able to keep up). Or when a game allows players to create min-maxed PCs at Character Creation that trivializes most of the recommended encounters.

For example; Cyberpunk 2020 has no hard limits in its Character Creation point-buy system, something Red very specifically tried to counterbalance. You can bump your character's signature skill all the way to 10 right from the get-go. This choice has immense lore implications (your character is effectively world renowned), for which I as the GM was forced to tweak for (My initial intent with 2020 was to run something that felt focused on smaller player characters surviving in a bigger world). It also meant, a lot of tasks were going to be trivial, for which I also had to tweak (this was a tweak I actually enjoyed because I often started using players' high stats against them). It also specifically gives players a monthly allowance to work with for holding the job this 10 get them, and then lets them start with double this income to purchase gear, cybernetics, etc. This was also something I as the GM now needed to account for and reduce so that my players weren't running around with some of the best gear from the get-go and had to actually take jobs to accrue cash. These were not minor tweaks, these were changes. One could argue that this is all well within 2020's intended design, and I'd be inclined to agree. The mistake lays a lot less in Cyberpunk's explicit design, and more in my expecting to be able to run a grimey streetrat world in it without some major legwork on my part.

Adding Stuff Is Not A Change

Maybe the system you want to run has no rules for overland travel, so you opt to make some up! Maybe you want to pull in torch management so you grab some mechanics from a blog you like and graft it onto your system! Maybe you want to add a whole new type of living Spirit Weapons into your game with bespoke mechanics! This is not changing the game's function (well it is, but not in the way that counts towards the Three Rules). 

This is the kind of stuff I as the GM expect and am excited to do, especially if I'm working with a good base. Granted if I'm running a Pirate Themed game, I will probably opt for a system that already has some of the Pirateyness baked into the mechanics. Or maybe not! Maybe I'll decide "Hey Mork Borg on the high seas sounds like a blast!" and throw together some simple ship rules. In fact I think a strength of Rules-Light games is that they're incredibly easy to safely add functionalities to. I don't have to worry about breaking Mork Borg's meta by adding a canon rule, but I do have to be cautious of how I design custom weapons in Cyberpunk ((which is simply a result of 2020 being a more complex system- And in fact once I understood that system, designing melee weapons or slug shotguns in those constraints was really fun! So I'm not saying either option is better, just that one relies less on knowledge and faith in the system ... That said we'll address later why I didn't feel comfortable designing things like Full-Auto weapons later.))

Regardless I'm not going to immediately drop a system because it's missing functionality that its conceit never promised. It's about needing to change functionality. I feel like the sentiment of these first two stipulations is echoed by Shawn Drake (@DrakeandDice) saying:

"It should work out of the box. It should deliver on the premise and function as described. It should provide an experience. 

 

Alterations should be tailoring for taste, not function."

 

Cutting or Simplifying Mechanics is a Change

Games can get fiddly. Mechanics are beautiful things, but sometimes the meat hardware we're working with at the table simply isn't built to process it. Let's take the combat rules in Cyberpunk. For whatever reason my brain just isn't built to intuit this system, especially when it comes to spatial measurements, Shotgun Spread and Full-Auto. Could I spend a few hours rereading a section I've already read 4 times, building my own cheat-sheet, training my brain until it's all second nature? Sure, but those are hours of my life I could spend training my brain to do literally anything else. Could I instead hone in those mechanics? Simplifying things like spread or averaging the number of dice rolled on Full-Auto? Yes, but that would be a change to functionality (and one that I don't think would be particularly good or flavorful unless considered carefully).

Another common change I hear people make in Cyberpunk is gutting the Netrunning system. Ironically I actually kind of like 2020's Netrunning system. While I wasn't going to use it, reading through it allowed me to have a better idea of how the Net operates, to the point that I knew more than a player at the table with years of experience with the game (who'd never actually run original Netrunning rules). This feels like a perfect example of how changing rules can begin to cause problems, gaps, dissonance. All of a sudden a key component of Cyberpunk's lore and design ethos becomes foggy because we're all unanimously ignoring the section that describes its minigame. And, to be clear, I'm not saying you should run 2020's Netrunning. Netrunning is really its own whole game that feels more designed for 1-on-1 play. However, it does feel interesting and even important to read if you like or plan on running/playing Cyberpunk. Especially given that you're almost certainly going to need to design something bespoke to fill the Net sized mechanical crater pulling out Netrunning causes. (Which is another huge time sink).

Fixing a Broken Combination is a Change

Magic items can be too powerful, an ability can be abused, and interactions can be exploited. Metas are one thing, but when a game (especially a game that focuses on problem solving or tactics) gives players an option that is so good that it can steamroll any encounter, that is a problem. Often you're left with one of two options:

A) Scale encounters appropriately, thereby leaving behind any players who aren't using this broken strategy. 

OR

B) Nerf, tweak or possibly remove the cause of the problem (magic item, ability, mechanical quirk, etx). 

That is absolutely a change to functionality. And it's a change that's going to feel bad for someone no matter what you do. Now, you can absolutely nerfs narratively and weave in why things are changing. In a campaign I ran where the conceit was that characters were in an MMO, there was literally a "Patch" that happened between sessions because of a broken set of combos. However if you're having to focus on this, that's taking away time from the players' story and their time in exploring the world. You can certainly make the best of it, but it is certainly a change.

This can be especially problematic in games like Cyberpunk 2020 that have years of splatbooks, options and cool parts that exemplify what power-creep can look like in a TTRPG. In 2020 it's almost OK because they're buried in magazines and deciphering their true potential can be emergently fun... But also oof. Even the base game has combos that can trivialize combat as long as the player goes first, prompting an aggressive expansion on my end as the GM to make crazier and crazier units. Units which the game gives very little material for building, except to say "If your players can make these broken combos, you can throw the same thing back at them!" - Which again, cool, and certainly better than the games that simply quietly let that brokenness languish (re: 2020 being one of my favs) but not exactly what I'm looking for. And changing that is a lot of work that could be spent doing literally anything else for the campaign or in my life.

It's a huge part of why I try my best to balance my tactical games very carefully to steam out any broken combos. A friend of mine believes this to be a fool's errand, but I think it's not just possible, it's incredibly important. Games will always have a degree of meta and optimal picks, but the key is ensuring nothing literally breaks the game (which is, in my estimation and time with video games, doable). Likewise I tend to design explicitly in abstracts ("Spaces", "DMG", "Turn") without giving a one-to-one on what that actually looks like, because otherwise you start inviting interactions like the peasant railgun. (To clarify I don't usually consume this kind of content nor engage in this kind of play, and also way prefer to link to blogs instead of videos... But something about that short is perfectly topical in its tone and texture). I do really wish more games would embrace the fact that they are games and abstractions, so that their mechanics can flourish unbound by technicalities, but that's also my personal taste.

A Matter of Scope

Something I will say affirmatively is that this rule is infinitely more of a rule in tactics games. I hate to say it like this, but no one really cares too much about balance in Mork Borg because it isn't a game about mechanical balance. It's a game about using your wits and pushing your luck (and maybe applying some of those light tweaks we talked about at the start). Because the game is so simple there's less to break and less that could ever need changing.

Conversely a tactics TTRPG is about strategy, turn taking, methodical planning, the interplay of mechanics, reacting within your means, knowing when to retreat. Without balance the whole experience falls apart and you might as well be playing something faster like Mork Borg. Moreover most tactical and rules-heavy games are much larger in scope than something rules-lites. More rules means more things can potentially go wrong or require the GM to change it. (And that's before you start adding your own stuff or expansions!)

Rules-Tight Systems

A major appeal (in my opinion) of Rules-Light systems is that they're incredibly Rules-Tight, which is to say that they need little to no tweaking. In most of them there's a simple resolution mechanic, a low health pool, some really flavorful / emergent abilities and a dripping aesthetic to wrap it all in. As long as you buy into the aesthetic not much can go wrong. As a result of this tightness they're easier to build on, hack and tweak without anything breaking. In fact some Rule-Light systems are so light that I don't even think they could break the Three Rules Rule, there's just not enough that could change without literally writing a new system.

As a result there seems to be a conception that bigger systems aren't or can't be Rules-Tight (probably not helped by the fact that influencers make a living talking about broken interactions in games like D&D 5e). There even seems to be a camp that fully rejects the idea that such systems should ever be Rules-Tight, and to each their own, but it's an ethos I personally can't accept. Instead in all of my maximalists designs I spend hours, tweaking, refining, honing things to be as Rules-Tight as possible, and whenever I do the game feels stronger for it. Are there GMs who will still throw half those rules out the window or introduce a new part that completely breaks their table's meta? Sure, and they'll be (generally) unaffected by how Rules-Tight things are anyways. They were always going to have fun regardless. But for those (like me) who are looking for the tactical experience my games try to build and for GMs looking for something Rules-Tight out-of-the-box that can lighten their cognitive load, it feels like an incredibly worthwhile effort.

Why Three Rules?

Inevitably you're going to want to change some stuff. Maybe everything is there right out of the box. Usually not. I've found even in some of my favorite TTRPGs there's a couple of adjustments I want to make. Major adjustments to better align the system with exactly what I'm going for. And that's fun and satisfying! Because I'm only having to focus on those 1-3 tweaks, I don't feel like I'm potentially pulling out a gear in a larger machine. Those changes are usually laser focused and as a result feel quite effortless!

I think to deny yourself the option to change the rules is to deny yourself some of the truest joys of the TTRPG. But everything has an opportunity cost, and for me the joys start outweighing the time and potential frustration after roughly Three Rules.

Why Is This Important

OK, OK, so I keep saying "why put in all this effort to change a system when I could be doing literally anything else" but it's more than that. Part of it is mental load, and wanting to have to think as little about the system as possible so I can focus on the table. There's a conception that only Rules-Light games are capable of this, but even a complex Rules-Tight system lightens the cognitive load, flows well, and lets everyone enjoy the game instead of having to fix the game. Part of it is very honestly stress capacity. Games are supposed to be fun and generally shouldn't be adding stress to your life, including if you're running them. And doing major changes, balancing mechanics, fighting a system to get a different experience, measuring the expectations of players who have read all the rules, none of that I find fun (especially compared to spending that time writing my own system from scratch which I find tremendously rewarding).

In fact it's that level of stress and headache that is a primary reason I stopped running Cyberpunk. I was running myself ragged trying to account for a million things the system was doing that was counter to the experience I wanted to run and bumping into rule pitfalls or weird interactions at every corner and having to explain to players who knew the system why things were changing. It was exhausting and taking up the limited time I have to work with this kind of stuff. I was making that campaign work, and could've kept going, but I was miserable, so I learned some things and stopped. (Hi! Yes! If this resonates with you and you're also running a campaign causing you stress, don't! Hit the bricks. It's not that you can't GM or need to try harder, it very well may be that the system or table or even just the campaign you're running isn't working for you. Be honest with your players that you're not having fun / not resonating with the system or campaign and want to stop. Cherish your mental health! This hobby is supposed to be primarily for fun! Unless you're getting compensated don't make yourself miserable! Don't do it! Also hydrate!)

I think for some GMs making changes and managing janky systems is actually is part of the fun. They like having to alter mechanics and account for the domino effect. They enjoy riding the power-creep, creating enemies that are as crazy powerful as the party's strongest hero. They get excited about ripping off the festering broken parts of a system and slapping in some shiny new cyberware they came up with. It can make a system feel a lot more personal to their table and be super rewarding to some! But for me (especially as someone who does a lot of design by scratch), it's usually a headache if I'm doing it a lot.

Thus I've started following the Three Rules Rule.