How many pages do they run?  And is the whole thing contained in one book or do they run to multiple volumes?  That is to say how many pages does the whole rule book run? Not just the "rules section".

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1010518Only how much we respectively enjoy tormenting our players.  I prefer to taunt them openly.  "Your bitter tears of rage warm the cockles of my black, withered heart, little man.".

I'm guy who lets people trash his setting. It not going to be easy but what happens happens. Just realize they will be the NPCs you contend with in the next campaign. Rinse and repeat for 35 years.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1010518I'm just goofin' around.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1010519Oh, plus "You can TRY powergaming in OD&D, but good luck."  Players can want all the magic they want.  IN fact, that's a great basis for the campaign.

I had incompetent players and groups. But I had groups that had their shit down as well and not only survive but thrive. With these groups the day comes when they get what they need to topple kingdoms. And I let them topple them. Generally what they have at that point is NOT whatever scheme they were thinking of at the beginning. But rather what opportunity and circumstances give them during the course of the campaign.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1010106This why I don't play most "modern" RPGs.  Too many damn rules.  If you can't fit it in 32 pages is it really worth playing?

Quote from: DavetheLost;1010188Pretty sure Metamorphosis Alpha was 32 pages.

I'll admit 32 is maybe a bit short. Old man grumbling for effect. But certainly a good game can be written in about 100 pages, including setting.  My players are always amazed at how short the rulebooks I use are.  Stormbringer weighs in at a hefty 165 pages!

Most games, if you remove the setting, examples of using the rules, and the advice, would come well under 32 pages.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1010413Think we're probably not all talking about the same games. However, one could have a game where you could say that they are rules light, but still have large rulebooks simply because the game has assumed settings, bestiaries, example characters/NPCs, or whatever else contained within the core rulebooks.

Yeah, that;).

Quote from: Voros;1010540Look at the actual rules section of most PbtA games.

How about you do that and tell us the answer? And then compare it to games from before 2000. The games published in the last 15 years or so that I've seen in a store or listed with page count on Drive Thru and such all have very long page counts. Honor+Intrigue certainly has a lengthy page count and it's not a particularly complicated or overly detailed game, probably on a par with RQ2 or OD&D, but with a longer page count than either.

QuoteOr the simple step-by-step layout of the game rules in the games of Ben Robbins (Microscope, Follow), Stephen Dewey (Ten Candles) or Meg Baker (1001 Nights, PSI Run). One can dislike these games (although best to actually read or play them before doing so) but they can't be criticized for being convoluted, rambling or laid out unclearly.

Never seen or played any of these. Never heard of most of them. Are they an open RPG, like the vast majority of games published before 2000, or something with a very narrow focus as to what a PC can attempt to do? Because if they aren't open RPGs then you are comparing 1/4" hex nuts to apple trees.

Thanks for the homework assignment Dad. :confused: As others have pointed out merely looking at total pages is meaningless as that includes advice, setting fluff, playbooks, bestriaries, gear and spell lists, introductory adventures and more.

And I somehow doubt that you're one to keep up on modern games so what difference does it make if you've heard of them or not?

Ben Robbins Microscope is in the suggested reading of the 5e PHB and is about as 'open' as a game can be. The reason I mentioned Microscope in particular is because I think that Robbins approach to laying out game rules has become influencial, you can see it distinctly in Ten Candles, a horror game that has been discussed extensively recently on this forum in the Mechanics for Horror Games thread.

As to PbtA game rules page counts, word counts would be more useful as they use significantly larger fonts and layouts than other RPGs, but I'm hardly going to start doing word-by-word counts for you. A quick look tells me that Masks has seven pages of rules if you don’t include Moves, Urban Shadows has 46 pages if you include Moves. But some of these pages have 500 words or less. There are lots of free or beta versions of PbtA games out there, check them out if you care, if you don't, don't.

Quote from: AsenRG;1010725Most games, if you remove the setting, examples of using the rules, and the advice, would come well under 32 pages.

Metamorphosis Alpha, which I cited includes the setting, rules, advice and examples of play in its 32 pages.

PbtA?

"Punch Balls till Atrophied"

It's simple. Players who are there to exploit the game rules are not there to actually play. They are there to waste other people's time. It's best to remove them and continue on with the players who are actually there to actually play.

Quote from: Voros;1010893Thanks for the homework assignment Dad. :confused:

Since you brought up the point I thought you had already done the work so no homework would be required. Well actually I thought you were just argumentatively blustering.

QuoteAnd I somehow doubt that you're one to keep up on modern games so what difference does it make if you've heard of them or not?

The point is whether or not these are corner case versions of an RPG or something most folks would recognize as an RPG.

QuoteBen Robbins Microscope is in the suggested reading of the 5e PHB and is about as 'open' as a game can be.

QuoteWant to explore an epic history of your own creation, hundreds or thousands of years long, all in an afternoon? That's Microscope.

Microscope (why not macroscope?) does not sound like the sort of RPG where you might or even could play an actual human being as part of a campaign that lasts for more than an afternoon, like say 30+ sessions of play.

QuoteTen Candles is a masterful storytelling game by Stephen Dewey. The basic premise of the game remains the same every time you play: The sun and stars went out. They came. You and a handful of other survivors are clinging to flickering sources of light and trying to find a safe haven. But the mechanics of the game vary the identity, nature, and goals They possess, and this can be combined with an almost endless variety of starting conditions (which the book amply demonstrates by including twenty-five radically different modules) to create something unique and special every time you play.

Another game that does not sound suitable for playing one or more characters as part of a campaign that lasts much longer than an afternoon.

Your examples from a length of play (and a scope of play) perspective sound similar to a game of Monopoly, Clue/Cludo, Risk, the old Civilization boardgame, or an old Avalon Hill, SPI, or Steve Jackson microgame boardgame. All of which have fairly short rules because that's all they need and that's all they allow you to play. And as a result several have rules that are way shorter than 32 pages. They can be that short because their scope of play is narrow - even if you may be playing the cultural rise and fall of the Greeks or Egyptians over a millennium or three.

Quote from: Headless;1010925PbtA?

Powered by the Apocalypse, or in other words, using the engine presented in Apocalypse World:).

In other news, I finally met a gamer today who actually believes systems are something that you use to beat the DM, and that you play against him. Unsurprisingly, he plays and runs Pathfinder and 5e, which maybe explains his outlook;).

Quote from: jeff37923;1009814I solved the problem of that one by making the player role-play how his character was charming the target. He couldn't do it since his typical approach was to say to a NPC, "hey motherfucker, give me your stuff" and then roll dice. Most people who are capable of coming up with an "invincible" build like that can't role-play worth a shit because they are so focused on rules mastery.

In my experience that's how every gamer who sings the praises of social mechanics behaves.

Play a lot using social mechanics, do you?

Quote from: Bren;1010434Kind of wondering that myself. I haven't noticed any move to short or terse rule books in this century. What are all these modern rule books that are only a few dozen pages in length?

Art is one culprit. Alot of games pagecount is doubled, or more, due to art. Which also usually doubles the games price.

Another problem is the designers demanding to be payed per word, rather than completed game. And so the page count gets bloated. The infamous entry for... a box... in D20m GW.

Other times its just that some games have more DM aids in the form of tables and pointers. Or more player aids in the form of lifepaths, name tables, whatever.

Rules light games tend to be very bare bones and require the GM to do alot of the work. 5e for example left out random encounter tables and left that to the DM to make custom to the situation.

And finally. Because designers soon learn that rules light means endless, endlesssssssssssssss player questions and Q&A sessions to the point that you end up with more pages anyhow. Sometimes to curb rules lawyers and loopholes. Or even because during playtest a player suggested adding something to make getting into the game easier. Personal example. Theres a chargen walkthrough example character in my book because a player asked for it.