I think the simplest system that I've used, and liked it enough to use it again is ye olde Amazing Engine. I use it when running Metamorphosis Alpha or Gamma World these days. It's just easier to manage than the original games and it really gives the MA or GW feeling I'm looking for.

Quote from: cranebump;867808Swords & six siders. Microlite 20. Fate accelerated. Dicey tails or barbarians of Lemuria.

Similar here M20.  S.John Ross's Risus , BOL and Fate Accelerated

If you really want rules to get out of the way, taking 3:16 (which is made for a Starship Troopers-esque scenario) and adapting it to your game of choice is sublimely simple. Definitely too simple for any long-running game, but really fun for a one off.

HeroQuest - You can fit the rules on one page with space left over.

I'm actually running a PbP superhero game using Triumphant!, which is pretty rules light (though high in page count, due to power descriptions and such).

Well, I've run Over the Edge and Amber several times, so I'm pretty fine with very simple rules.  It's very complex rules I can't stand.

I don't care what the GM is using, just whether the game is fun. I want a role-playing game, and the only games in which my role knew he was in a game -- Morpheus and Dream Park -- were a step too far removed for my taste. To me the abstraction is a distraction, something I appreciate being able to leave to the GM.

I understand, though, that washing my hands of all of it is not always practical. I know that while some other people share my preference, many others don't. Many game systems are designed primarily for players who like to engage with them directly. The real question for me is what's the most complex load of abstraction-oriented paperwork I would find acceptable as a player.

As a GM, I'm likewise comfortable with 1- or 2-page frameworks, if that's sufficient for the game at hand. In the late '80s I ran some games I called "American Gothic" pretty much just eyeballing odds.

The subject of the fad for Orks in Space, Cyberpunk Elves, Napoleonic Hobbits, ad nauseum, came up and came around to "mix two old TV shows for a game." I mixed Route 66 and The Twilight Zone, with some guys in a car off to look for America the Weird and do a sort of opposite X-Files routine: Their mission was to KEEP the occult just that with cover ups, because Very Bad Things just got stronger the more people believed in Very Strange Things (even if those seemed just harmless and even charming). Like the later Men in Black comicbook series and movies, I guess.

Anyway, the game was mostly about (A) figuring out what was going on and how to stop it, and (B) inventing a cover up. In other words, the really important stuff was just a matter of players thinking and acting in character, rather than wargame stuff like whether a figure can pot another with a rifle shot. (When that did come up, the Korea vet was better than the surfer, and so on with other situations according to what made sense.)

Chaosium's Worlds of Wonder is about my limit (and also kind of my sweet spot).

Quote from: Vile;868223Chaosium's Worlds of Wonder is about my limit (and also kind of my sweet spot).

The "BRP Light" flavor of WoW/CoC/Stormbringer is my longtime go-to for anything for which the bells and whistles of another rules set don't have me jumping up and down. Often enough, I can graft on the niftiest elaborations from such a set.

Quote from: Vile;868223Chaosium's Worlds of Wonder is about my limit (and also kind of my sweet spot).

I haven't thought about that game in years.

Well it depends on what I'm doing.

I have used a system for GURPS combat with many fighters, where fighting between two abstracted NPCs (typical guard type A versus typical soldier type B) can be resolved by a single 12-sided die roll for every pair of fighters. However, it's based on a result table that was generated by calculating the odds when using very detailed rules.

For RPGs, the simplest I'd use would probably be The Fantasy Trip rules, which are pretty simple especially if you're just using the Melee microgame. But I prefer to memorize complex rules to get ease of play, as opposed to not having rules to cover things well, especially now that I have memorized such rules. So really Advanced Melee (http://www.thortrains.net/downloads/AdvMeleeLarge.pdf) which is like 35 pages, maybe 20 of which are rules that would usually get used frequently. And really we mastered that and wanted more after a few years, so the real answer is probably some set of GURPS & houserules.

Quote from: The Butcher;867605For a one-shot game? Microlite20 or Barbarians of Lemuria, I think.

For a campaign I'd require something, well, meatier.

This is my view as well. I've run pleanty of one-shot games with nearly zero rules, but it it turns out to be a long-running campaign I prefer a bit more structure. Even then, I prefer a light rules system to a heavy rules system -- the 1974 OD&D game is just right, or sometimes C&C or DCC. Those all play fast and loose and I have a lot of space to "wing it" as we go. Indeed, I can run most of an OD&D campaign with little more than a GM screen.

Quote from: finarvyn;868346This is my view as well. I've run pleanty of one-shot games with nearly zero rules, but it it turns out to be a long-running campaign I prefer a bit more structure. Even then, I prefer a light rules system to a heavy rules system -- the 1974 OD&D game is just right, or sometimes C&C or DCC. Those all play fast and loose and I have a lot of space to "wing it" as we go. Indeed, I can run most of an OD&D campaign with little more than a GM screen.

Your S&W WB rules walk the perfect line. It's streamlined OD&D, which goes brilliantly with any gamer crowd, classic or modern, even more so than actual OD&D IMO.