Too Much Role-Playing

Ironically, one great problem role-playing games have these days is that there is too much role-playing being done. Now, New Dimension Games pushes role-playing more than most companies, as our rules are minimized in order to maximize one's room for performance and improvisational additions to the story. However, it seems that with all the hardcover books out there for world building, backstory and other ultimately trivial details, nobody goes on adventures anymore. I really have to wonder why games bother publishing rules for experience points, levels or risk factors at all, or hell, why even bother with publishing rules for combat and even dice rolls? It's not like they're ever really used, and if they are, it's half-hearted and meaningless at best, because the once carefully balanced scores are thrown out the window by the GM's big modifiers based on story whims. You can min-max your scores all you want to squeeze out that +3 it took your character half a lifetime to earn, but when the GM just tosses out a +5 bonus to someone else because he has a 'story detail', well, why bother bringing all those expensive rulebooks to the game table? Why bother even buying them? Seriously, folks, role-playing is what the game is about, but it's an ADVENTURE role-playing game! Can we cut with the tavern talk and get our asses to the dungeon already?

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