Quote from: HinterWeltSquirrel Attack Home Page is here If you download the demo, that is the Iridium Lite rules.

Based on a quick browse, mainly of the character sheets (which tell a bunch about a system), it looks good but I'm not sure if it qualifies as lite - 15 stats, tracking armor and hits for 10 locations.

Quote from: NicephorusBased on a quick browse, mainly of the character sheets (which tell a bunch about a system), it looks good but I'm not sure if it qualifies as lite - 15 stats, tracking armor and hits for 10 locations.

Like I said, some folks may not see it as such. For me, lite rules are all about how much I need to read. In the case of IL, it is under 6 full (8.5x11) pages and just under 12 on the statement size.

I do appreciate that some folks rate lite rules by number of stats. To me, that is not such an important criteria. I had to think long and hard about the armor/fortitude tracking but in the end, it is kind of central to my games. I must admit, that is why I say IL may not qualify for a lot of people as lite. However, it is lite compared to the Iridium Core rules.

Thanks for looking them over. I am always looking for ways to improve the system.

Bill

That brings up a good point.  What are the key feature(s) that make something lite?

total amount of rules?
Speed of learning?
speed of play?
memory load during play?

These are all related but not the same.

Speed of play is heavily affected by the number of steps to resolve an action.  For example, rolemaster could never get lite as you always had to go through several crit charts for every hit.

To me, memory load is important to keep things light and fast.  A game needs enough items about each character such that the player feels that they are well defined but not so many that they have trouble  remembering everything about their character - if you can keep almost all of it in your head, you don't have to stop and check things.  The tricky bit is that the set point varies across individuals.  It's also not just a count of # of facts as things that are intuitive to remember take less memory than thngs difficult to comprehend.  

Example:  BESM started out as a light system.  You had three abilities, three derived stats, and 3-4 special things your character did.  But when they added skills and started getting more nitty gritty about what each special power did, it became more of a medium complexity games.

As far as Rules-Lite, right now I think I like Fudge and Risus the most, with BESM coming up a little behind.  (It's fairly light once characters are done, depending on how much detail you throw into things.)  I'm interested in checking out the BESM Vanilla rules once they escape.

Quote from: NicephorusThat brings up a good point.  What are the key feature(s) that make something lite?

total amount of rules?
Speed of learning?
speed of play?
memory load during play?

These are all related but not the same.

Speed of play is heavily affected by the number of steps to resolve an action.  For example, rolemaster could never get lite as you always had to go through several crit charts for every hit.

To me, memory load is important to keep things light and fast.  A game needs enough items about each character such that the player feels that they are well defined but not so many that they have trouble  remembering everything about their character - if you can keep almost all of it in your head, you don't have to stop and check things.  The tricky bit is that the set point varies across individuals.  It's also not just a count of # of facts as things that are intuitive to remember take less memory than thngs difficult to comprehend.  

Example:  BESM started out as a light system.  You had three abilities, three derived stats, and 3-4 special things your character did.  But when they added skills and started getting more nitty gritty about what each special power did, it became more of a medium complexity games.

hmm, tough one on whether IL makes the list then. Most of the memory load is offloaded onto the character sheet. It walks you through the steps and during play there is no referencing the book.

Perhaps IL is more of a medium complexity although I haven't given up hope it is a lite system yet.

Bill