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When you DM a game you have to keep a lot of plates spinning. You have to manage perhaps half a dozen players and keep them engaged and excited, you have to keep track of and describe the state of the world, you have to play NPCs, you have to steer the story, you have to roll dice and carry out operations as required by the rules.
It's a lot! Your attention is at a premium, there's never enough to go around, and if any of it is wasted the game can suffer.
The mechanics of the game are essentially a computer program using your brain, hands and voice as the computer. If it demands that you do too many operations at once, the game slows down just as a computer game using up too much RAM on a PC would. FRP rules should be streamlined for the same reason code should be streamlined - speed and efficiency.
It's not a question of complex rules being for smarter DMs - no matter how smart you are, your resources are still finite. Why not spend that extra brainpower on the story and not on calculating modifiers for attack rolls?
You can use rules that produce similarly desirable outcomes with fewer operations.
The B/X combat matrix looks like this:
βββββββββββββββ¦βββββ¦βββββ¦βββββ¦βββββ¦βββββ¦βββββ¦βββββ¦βββββ¦βββββ¦βββββ¦βββββ¦βββββ¦βββββ β Monster HD β -3 β -2 β -1 β 0 β 1 β 2 β 3 β 4 β 5 β 6 β 7 β 8 β 9 β β ββββββββββββββ¬βββββ¬βββββ¬βββββ¬βββββ¬βββββ¬βββββ¬βββββ¬βββββ¬βββββ¬βββββ¬βββββ¬βββββ¬βββββ£ β NH β 20 β 20 β 20 β 20 β 19 β 18 β 17 β 16 β 15 β 14 β 13 β 12 β 11 β β Up to 1 β 20 β 20 β 20 β 19 β 18 β 17 β 16 β 15 β 14 β 13 β 12 β 11 β 10 β β 1+ to 2 β 20 β 20 β 19 β 18 β 17 β 16 β 15 β 14 β 13 β 12 β 11 β 10 β 9 β β 2+ to 3 β 20 β 19 β 18 β 17 β 16 β 15 β 14 β 13 β 12 β 11 β 10 β 9 β 8 β β 3+ to 4 β 19 β 18 β 17 β 16 β 15 β 14 β 13 β 12 β 11 β 10 β 9 β 8 β 7 β β 4+ to 5 β 18 β 17 β 16 β 15 β 14 β 13 β 12 β 11 β 10 β 9 β 8 β 7 β 6 β β 5+ to 6 β 17 β 16 β 15 β 14 β 13 β 12 β 11 β 10 β 9 β 8 β 7 β 6 β 5 β β 6+ to 7 β 16 β 15 β 14 β 13 β 12 β 11 β 10 β 9 β 8 β 7 β 6 β 5 β 4 β β 7+ to 9 β 15 β 14 β 13 β 12 β 11 β 10 β 9 β 8 β 7 β 6 β 5 β 4 β 3 β β 9+ to 11 β 14 β 13 β 12 β 11 β 10 β 9 β 8 β 7 β 6 β 5 β 4 β 3 β 2 β β 11+ to 13 β 13 β 12 β 11 β 10 β 9 β 8 β 7 β 6 β 5 β 4 β 3 β 2 β 2 β β 13+ to 15 β 12 β 11 β 10 β 9 β 8 β 7 β 6 β 5 β 4 β 3 β 2 β 2 β 2 β β 15+ to 17 β 11 β 10 β 9 β 8 β 7 β 6 β 5 β 4 β 3 β 2 β 2 β 2 β 2 β β 17+ to 19 β 10 β 9 β 8 β 7 β 6 β 5 β 4 β 3 β 2 β 2 β 2 β 2 β 2 β β 19+ to 21 β 9 β 8 β 7 β 6 β 5 β 4 β 3 β 2 β 2 β 2 β 2 β 2 β 2 β β 21+ or more β 8 β 7 β 6 β 5 β 4 β 3 β 2 β 2 β 2 β 2 β 2 β 2 β 2 β βββββββββββββββ©βββββ©βββββ©βββββ©βββββ©βββββ©βββββ©βββββ©βββββ©βββββ©βββββ©βββββ©βββββ©βββββ
You compare the AC along the top with the monster's HD down the side to find a target number to hit. But mostly what the table tells us is that 1HD=5% chance to hit. Armour is a 5% reduction in chance to hit per point, and all else being equal a 1HD monster will hit an unarmoured opponent about half the time.
D&D 3E simplified this by making AC a target number and having HD provide an attack bonus to the aid in reaching it. You roll a die, add a number and compare to another number.
In my system most rolls are made by the players, so they roll against their armour to fend off attacks. Armour is a simple number to roll equal to or under - so for no armour, you have to roll 9 or less, so on a 10+ a 1HD monster will hit you, exactly as on the matrix.
If you're wearing plate, you have to roll 15 or less, the same odds as for AC3 on the table.
But you also have to roll over the monster's HD, giving him that extra 5% chance to hit with every HD he gains.
The result is a slightly quirky rolling system, but one where you only have to know two numbers - HD and AC - and don't have to perform any operations on them other than "is this higher/lower than the roll of the die?"
A more cavalier change I've made is that PCs no longer have per-class combat tables of their own - they just use their STR to attack with, and have a chance to gain attribute points at each level a la π΅π©π¦ πππ’π€π¬ ππ’π€π¬. The result is that PCs gain combat accuracy as they level, the fighters more quickly than the others, and all of them more slowly than the monsters - which is basically what the old tables did. The details are streamlined away but the essence remains.
You can also drop rules that don't add to the game. Because every rule eats uses some of your attention, it has a πΈπ¦πͺπ¨π©π΅ - make sure it pulls its weight!
Some rules pull their weight because they make the game run smoothly - for example, initiative rolls so you don't waste time waffling over whose turn it is.
Some contribute to the loops that make the core gameplay satisfying - like combat mechanics, or weight limits on how much gold you can haul out of the dungeon.
Some are just π§πΆπ― in their own right - like a big table of random magical effects.
There's only one DM, but there might be six players, that's six brains and twelve hands. You want to keep them busy and engaged so passing some of the workload of the game onto them is win/win.
For example, instead of rolling for the monsters to attack, make the players roll save/defense checks against the monster's attacks. When it comes to the monsters turn in one of my sessions, I can say "Garviel, make three defense rolls, difficulties 4, 2 and 2; Rhea, make 2 defense rolls, difficulty 3; Aeris, two defence rolls difficulty 4 and four difficulty 3," and I've made 11 attacks without picking up a die - and all those rolls will be done by the time I get around the table asking for the results.
If something takes a lot of time, youcan find a way to make it not happen at the table and move it to downtime.
This is a two-edged sword. Prep is another big burden on a DM so it's important not to make more homework for yourself. On the other hand, many tasks are better done away from the time pressure of the table. If a player is researching a new spell or creating a magical item, it pays to give yourself the time to think about how it should work without the players sitting there waiting for you to make a decision.
This is a tenet of the OSR, the belief that the huge numbers of feats, classes, and special case rules in modern D&D actually limits the imaginative space of the game.
Players end up 'playing the sheet and not the character' - when faced with a problem they look to their sheet for a skill or special ability to resolve it mechanically instead of imagining themselves as the character in the world and solving it in a naturalistic way.
The OSR approach is to have a limited set of rules to cover the most common situations arising in the game, and for everything else, rely on the DM to make something up.
Why have a 300 page book of 16 classes and 60 feats when you could just have a 64 page booklet with 4 classes and make everything else up as you need it? You want to play a warlock in my game? I'll make a warlock class just for you, and have fun doing it.
But adding new classes, spells and abilities on the fly requires a deep understanding of the rules.
This can be accomplished by having some kind of savant DM, but for ordinary mortals a better route is to just make the rules simple enough that you can understand them. Writing your own rules - even if they're just a slight modification of existing rules - is a great way to build this understanding.
"Fantasy Heartbreaker" was a derogatory term for the frequent attempts at reinventing D&D in the 80s-90s FRP scene. But it turns out fantasy heartbreakers were a good thing. Look at the OSR scene now: Black Hack, White Hack, OSE, Knave, Cairn, Into the Odd - there's a reinvention of D&D to suit every taste, and if there isn't, you can make your own.
I once saw someone complain "how many versions of D&D does the world need?"
I replied, "as many as there are Dungeon Masters."
Make the game your own down to the last bolt.
If you want to add new rules to your game it helps if you can predict ahead of time how they will work - and this is easier if you can eyeball probabilities.
D20 and percentile systems are great for this. What's your chance of rolling equal to or under your 35% archeology skill? Why, it's 35%!
D20 is just the same in 5 point increments. Need to roll 14+? That's also 35%.
Die pools are murkier. What are your odds of rolling at least three 5+ on 8d6? That's a bit harder to do on your fingers.
EV, or Expected Value, is an invaluable concept here. Let's say you want to make two monsters with different but equally dangerous attacks.
If a 1HD monster has a 50% chance to hit and deals d6 damage, its EV for damage per round is the average roll of a d6 (3.5) times its chance to hit (0.5), or 1.75hp.
If you want to make a monster which does more damage but is not more powerful, you could have a monster deal 2d6 damage but only have a 25% chance to hit (for 1.75hp EV), or 1d8 but with a 40% chance to hit (for 1.8hp EV).
Once you get used to doing this you can add new rules, monsters, and abilities to the game with some awareness of how they're going to impact it and compare to the existing elements.
By applying all of these approaches to designing or selecting a system you can end up with something that is as complicated is at needs to be, as simple as it can be, and straightforward enough that you can add whatever features you or your players want to the game without breaking it.
In Only 6 Load-Bearing Numbers by Warren D.
Practical Game Theory - EV, EV, EV!
Rules vs. Rulings? by the Alexandrian