Which RPGs are the easiest for you to run?

My desire for crunch has shifted through my RPG carreer. I find myself less enthused about keeping track of myriad rules and ensuring players follow them. When I GM something like Pathfinder, I believe it’s up to the player to keep track of their character’s rules details. If they forget something at a crucial point, so sad, moving on! But that can create an antagonistic feeling at the gaming table and I try to avoid setting up a GM vs Player dynamic.

So these days I tend toward games which don’t have a lot of crunch. Kobolds Ate My Baby! is a good example. It has a very simple rules system which is intuitive and gets out of the way of the players and lets them get to the not-so-serious business of being kobolds. And I like that. Once everyone has the rules sorted we just play, and I can improvise the stories without having to parse rules all the time.

I think this contributes to my enjoyment of D&D 5E. The current version borrows so heavily from earlier editions, while incorporating more modern system design, that I can comfortably just play the game without worrying about keeping a bunch of fiddly rules straight. I’ve played this game for so long it’s almost a reflex at this point. Even if I don’t know a rule, I can usually make something up to get us through the moment, and I usually find I was accidentally pretty close to the actual rule.