Monte writes some more boring stuff here.

QuoteDoes the game present players with challenges that have pre-made solutions?

For example, can all monsters be defeated in straightforward ways, which is to say, attacked with swords and magic missiles until they die? Can all physical obstacles (walls to climb, narrow ledges to traverse, rivers to cross, and so forth) be overcome with die rolls? Are those die rolls achievable given the PCs' level and abilities? Is the solution to every puzzle available to those with the right skills or spells? Is the counter or resolution to every problem hardwired into the game?

Put another way, need a player look any further than his character sheet to solve every in-game challenge? Are the bounds of the game defined by the bounds of the rules?

Looking back at the game's roots, the answer to these questions was usually no. In the early days, the game's mechanics rarely provided solutions to the problems the characters faced. Players stretched beyond the bounds of the rules and looked for solutions not covered in the books. Player ingenuity was always the key to winning encounters. And very often, the DM didn't actually have a set solution in mind ahead of time. He expected the PCs to come up with something on their own.

This isn't true of more recent expressions of the game. There are few encounters that can't be won simply by using the PCs' straightforward powers and abilities. For example, consider fire immunity. In older versions of the game, the red dragon was immune to fire. If you're packing fireballs, you're just out of luck. In the most recent version of the game, the designers decided that it's no fun if the game tells you that the choices you made were wrong, so red dragons are resistant to fire, but not immune. You can still use your fireballs.

That's a viable design approach. You make sure that no choices are bad choices. You make sure that every lock has a key that can be found. Every barrier has a way past it. You ensure that the PCs are never presented with a challenge that they can't somehow overcome. You encourage the players to roll some dice and then move on to the next thing.

This says a lot about 4e.  I can't tell if he's deliberately being condescending, however.

The rest of the article goes on, and then there's some mad:

QuoteLike so many of the L&L articles, the writer in this one is once again fishing for a reason why he shouldn't have to produce a quality product.  

Here's his thesis statement: And maybe that's really the takeaway here. The rules are not the sum total of the game.
Rules are the part of the game that the designer creates and the customer forks over some of their ever-shrinking discretionary income for.  They're the aspect of the game that can be analyzed, evaluated, and judged to be good or bad.  They're the difference between a quality game - that's easy to learn, easy to run, fun to play and hard to break - and a crap game that requires heroic efforts from a talented GM and nigh-saintly players to 'save.'  

He even admits it: It puts the responsibility back in the hands of the players, rather than the DM or the _designer_.
Heaven forbid the designer take responsibility for quality of the game he designs.

On one hand, saying the rules are not the sum of the game is 100% correct.

 This also doesn't mean that a game is crap if everything you would like to try doing in that game isn't covered by the rules.

The above statements do not excuse a game for being poorly designed or written. The problems arise when players behave like consumers rather than hobbyists. It would be like a modeler getting upset because a kit for a balsawood plane wasn't an already finished product out of the box.

Roleplaying games are kits used by hobbyists to build a game to thier tastes. Consumers should stick to CCGs or boardgames that are out-of-the-box ready to go.

I don't get what some people expect a set of roleplaying game rules to do. The game would have to be very limited in scope to handle "everything" which defeats the purpose of the medium, or more open and akin to guidelines rather than codified rules so that the imagination guides play over the rules.

I neither want, nor expect a game designer to tell me how to run my game. Present your best tools for doing so and I can handle the rest.

Been saying it for ages :

The rules are not the game. The game is not the rules.

This really isn't rocket science. People who don't realize this should give up on this whole "role playing" thingy and play fucking board games already.

Quote from: Benoist;490255People who don't realize this should give up on this whole "role playing" thingy and play fucking board games already.

For such individuals, board games probably would not keep them happy for long.

More likely such individuals would be prime candidates for single player video games, where "the game is the rules" is literally hard coded into the computer code.