My favorite rules are Classic Traveller. I play D&D 4E. Each have their own degree of complexity, but the flavor is VERY different in each of them. I grew up playing CT, and I can write a page of notes and wing the rest. It's DEEP inside my head, and brain damage or no, I can put it together in my sleep. 4E is a whole new ballgame, and I struggle with putting together encounters and characters. But it's more accessible to the action-oriented fertile imaginations of my little girls, so that's what we play. I believe that D&D as a brand will be around for quite some time to come, and I would like the girls to have a familiarity with it so when they move onto their own gaming groups when they get older (the horror!) they will have the same baseline as everyone around them.

More often though the Roolz Lite people don't add in their own detail, it is handwaved.

So rather than come up with something cool they are throwing cold unseasoned mashed potatoes at each other.
'Take that!' *Splat*
'Aha, mine enemy, you were never mine equal!' *Splat*

Only without the exciting dialog. 'I hit him. *Splat*
'He hits you back.' *Splat.*
'I hit him again.' *Splat*
'He goes down under your endless barrage of cold unseasoned mashed potatoes.'
'Those were fireballs!'
'Oh? I couldn't tell, and you didn't say.'

Having the pre codified descriptions can also help make the game consistent. If the PCs are willing to codify it themselves then all well and good, if they just have '1d4 - fire' under their description then, nar, don't like it.

Arguments about skill based and level based systems a separate aside, and to a certain extent it is separate from my likes - I like Ars Magica, as one example among many, which is levelless, but not rules lite. Ditto for the old Storyteller system, which is pretty much the middle of rules heavy/rules lite. I like True20, which has levels and is rules lite. 4e has levels, is rules heavy, and I hate it.

Really though, this is a variant on Gamist vs. Simulationist vs. Narrativist. I lean toward S and a tiny bit of N, without all that much in terms of G. The GNS model may be dated, but it still matches my personal observations pretty well. Rules Lite tends to be a N thing.

In the hands of a good GM rules lite can be very good, but I have seen too many bad rules lite GMs. Rules heavy tends to be more rigid, but a good GM can make up for that rigidity, and can be very good. I do think that rules heavy adds structure, which a poor to mediocre GM needs to not completely suck. I have seen overly rigid GMs who, with a rules heavy rules set, suck. (If it ain't in the rulez ya can't do it!)

My post that was quoted above to begin this thread is not a diatribe against rules lite - it is a polemic against Zen Tiger's assumptions that his players have more imagination - which I deny. And I am pretty sure that my players can beat up his players. (Jon is over six feet tall, owns full sets of both chain and plate armor, and has a wide selection of weapons in his closet. His wife Julie has a pair of very nice recurved bows. Chris has a trebuchet. And let's not get into the guy who spent 2K on a Barrett - if he were less... stable*... then he would make me nervous.)

I suspect that Zen Tiger leans towards N, with a tiny bit of G, not a lot of S.

Cap'n G probably has relatively little S. Don't know about G or N - he does not talk that much about gaming.

More completely, I am an ESTJ, with the T pegged, and no F at all. For some reason I had been surprised about the E, if you had asked me I would have said that I was an I or maybe an X. Neither the S nor the J was in any way a shock - the J sort of goes with being a GM.

The Auld Grump, yes, I am throwing in the letter profiles because I think that they are funny. True, but funny. But then there are only 10 types of people, those who understand binary and those who don't....

* He's a CPA who, aside from the Barrett, fits the stereotype. He bought the .50 cal when he hit 50. And... I didn't even notice the inherent joke until just now.... I'm slipping.

See - rules accumulation has begun! (Joking.)

Something else to bear in mind is that is possible to build a rules heavy system that allows personalization - Spycraft 2.0 excels in this regard. Fantasy Craft, by the same folks, not so much.... This is also why the only folks that I knew who played 4e gave it up - like me they enjoy personalization and rules tinkering.

The magic system that I prefer for Spycraft is Elements of Magic: Mythic Earth - a system that encourages both GMs and players to describe traditions of magic. The result is that you can have two magi using identical rules systems who's magic feels nothing alike.

A Wizard from the Royal Navy College of Magic has a different approach than a follower of either the Classical Fey tradition or The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn - even if all three are attacking with similar spell effects. (And, I gotta tell ya, Admiralty Wizard Lord Nelson was a roight scary bastard. Di'n't save 'im at Trafalgar though, now did it?)

So unless somebody follows the tenets of The Brotherhood of the Eyeless Spud I manage to avoid the barrage cold unseasoned mashed potatoes.

True20, a rules lite system, does encourage tweaking the system to fit the desired flavor. There are tweaks to bend the game to fit steampunk, horror, and space opera, as well as generic post-Tolkien fantasy world #167. Steam powered armor does not function the same as magic armor.

Savage Worlds, rules lite, made Weird Science just the ability to create magic items that work just like every every other magic item - they cannot be reproduced by a factory, they do not use fuel or other motive power - they turned what was the crowning gem in Deadlands into a cold pile of unseasoned mashed potatoes.

Rules lite does not ensure a personal touch, rules heavy does not prevent it. And on some levels SW actively works against it. When given a chance to add personalization they instead decided to stick with the generic. Without butter.

The Auld Grump